Mr. Spivey's Clerk/Chapter 8

Before spring came round again, Mr. Spivey, instead of increasing Tom Christmas's salary, had charged him with an important commission, the duties of which were calculated to take him far away from Paternoster Row for many a month. Mr. Spivey, who rarely read anything except for special reasons, had been reading up about our Australian colonies, and he formed the idea—that is to say, it "occurred" to him—that a branch of his business might be established with much profit and advantage in Melbourne or Sydney. He accordingly proposed to send Tom Christmas out there in order to carry this new idea into practical working order. I don't think Tom cared very ​much about leaving England for so many months. He was to start in March and return about the end of November; and, I dare say, it seemed a long time to him. As for Maggie Primrose, she was against it altogether, and begged Tom to stay at home. Even when he had explained to her how much it would be to his advantage to fall in with Mr. Spivey's wishes, she was opposed to it. I think our little Primrose felt safe when Tom was near and unsafe when he was away. At any rate, she took the news very much to heart, and was terribly uneasy about it from the moment it was settled upon until the time of his departure.

When Tom Christmas first told me of Mr. Spivey's proposal, I strongly advised him to marry before he went away. The sea-trip, I said, would do Maggie good, and he would not feel so lonely as he would if alone in a strange country. But he shook his head at my proposal and said it would not do.

"In the first place, Len," he said, "I could ​not afford to take Maggie with me. Secondly, there is no one to leave with my mother."

"Mrs. Christmas might go to the Bishop's for a few months," I suggested.

Tom shook his head.

"I don't think she would care to do that," he answered. "No, I shall get back as quickly as possible, Len, and then we will have a wedding, and you shall be my best man. I suppose we shall have to invite Dumbury to officiate, Len, shall we not?"

"I suppose so, Tom Christmas. If we do not we shall have to settle matters with Mrs. Dumbury."

"Fancy me being married by a real live Bishop!" he said, laughing. "We shall have to insert the announcement in the papers, I suppose, Len. It will look like the marriage of some big swell instead of that of poor Tom Christmas. But perhaps, Len, his lordship of Grandchester will not condescend to tie the knot."

​"If I know anything of his lordship's lady, Tom Christmas, I think he will condescend."

"Why, yes," said Tom, with a thoughtful expression. "I fancy Julia has the whip hand of him."

As, indeed, she had. Julia Christmas had married Bishop Dumbury with a view to her own advancement; and she had made up her mind that her husband should gratify her ambition in every way. She meant him to be Archbishop of Canterbury, or, at any rate, of York; nay, I think she would not have objected to his turning Papist, providing he could by any means have attained to the Papal Chair. She decided when she married him that he should make his mark in something beside his episcopal duties, and she also decided that the best way in which he could do so was by following her commands instead of trusting to his own powers. So that Dumbury, after a few weeks of married life, discovered that he had married a strong-minded woman who believed herself capable ​of managing his affairs better than he could manage them himself.

In those days Julia Dumbury was a very busy woman. After they returned from the honeymoon and Dumbury had been consecrated Bishop, she plunged into active work, and immediately gained a name and fame amongst the more influential people of the diocese. She went about her self-imposed duties with tremendous energy, but did not forget her hereditary duties as Bishop's wife. The clergy round about Grandchester, who had been disposed to look askance at Mrs. Dumbury, soon made up their minds to worship the rising sun, and came to her dinner-parties with smooth countenances and well-oiled tongues. Gentlemen, who wanted anything in the way of preferment, also quickly discovered that it was far better to consult the Bishop's wife, than to apply direct to the Bishop. Young incumbents, who had been endeavouring to muster up courage to assume coloured stoles and burn ​candles, ceased their ceremonial labours on learning that Mrs. Dumbury was decidedly opposed to Ritualism in any shape or form. Rumour soon spreads amongst people who have little to do; and everybody in the diocese of Grandchester quickly learnt that Bishop Dumbury's lady was the real power of Grandchester Palace.

I always supposed that Julia would want to work some radical change in her brother's affairs if ever she got a chance of doing so. When she married Dumbury and became allied with the Bench of Bishops, she evidently decided that she must do something for Tom Christmas, for she came over to London one day, and remained over night with us in Canonbury Square, in order to persuade her brother to leave Mr. Spivey's establishment, and embrace the profession in which Mr. Dumbury, or Dr. Dumbury as he now was, had attained so much fame.

I had gone home early that afternoon, and ​I found Mrs. Dumbury sitting with her mother. I thought she looked older; certainly she had lost the almost sprightly air which came to her when Frank Lestrange renewed his acquaintance with her family. She was very richly dressed, and looked quite stately and dignified, and was altogether calculated to impress the casual beholder.

She had already communicated her views to Mrs. Christmas and to Maggie Primrose when I arrived, and she was gracious enough to favour me with a repetition of them before Tom came.

"I look to you, Leonard Tempest," she said, with a touch of almost episcopal authority, "to help me in persuading Thomas Christmas to fall in with my views. It is not seemly that he, a clergyman's son, should be occupied as at present, and I and Bishop Dumbury feel this and propose to do something for him."

"I shall be very glad to help you in persuading Tom to whatever may be for his good, ​Mrs. Dumbury," I said. "May I ask what you propose?"

"We propose that he should take Orders," she said. "There are several very good livings in the diocese of Grandchester, and the Bishop would present Thomas to one if he will follow out our wishes. Old Mr. Champney of Hogley-poke-cum-Switherton is very infirm and cannot live long, and the Bishop would make arrangements for Thomas to succeed him. It is worth seven hundred and fifty a year."

I looked at Maggie and saw her eyes sparkle for a moment. I knew what she was thinking. Seven hundred and fifty pounds a year meant that she and Tom would be happy for the rest of their lives. There would be no slaving away at Spivey's all day and drudging in the attic-study till midnight. Tom would have rest and leisure, and she would have a pretty vicarage with a rose-garden and trim flower-beds. The picture had its attractions for Maggie. I dare say that ​if she had been rich all her life, it would have possessed none. But as she had known what it is to be very poor, it was as attractive as the fairy palace is to the child.

Julia, too, saw that longing look on Maggie's face, and knew that here was a powerful ally. She began to talk to the girl about the vicarage of Hogley-poke-cum-Switherton, and described its charms and beauties very cleverly. Tom, she said, could have as much leisure for his scientific studies as he pleased, for the parish was one of sparse population, and it had always been usual to keep a curate, while Maggie would find most enjoyable society, and be within five miles of the palace. All of which made the picture still more attractive in the little Primrose's eyes.

It was to a characteristic group that Tom Christmas came home that night. There was his sister, the great lady anxious for her own sake to do something for him; there was his ​mother, understanding very little about the matter, except that her son was to be a great man; and there was Maggie, his sweetheart, her brown eyes alight with pleasurable anticipation. I think he saw there was something on the tapis as soon as he came in, for he sat down to his dinner in silence, and prepared to listen to whatever message Mrs. Dumbury was just then charged with.

He heard her very quietly to the end, when she finally delivered herself of the important communication, and I think he saw with what eagerness his mother and his sweetheart awaited his reply. As for me, I was not eager or curious: I knew well enough what his decision would be.

"A comfortable vicarage, a pretty village and church, a small population, plenty of leisure and good society, and seven hundred and fifty pounds a year?" he said. "That sounds very nice, Julia, very nice indeed. It sounds like rest, and peace, and quiet for the remainder of one's life. Why, ​I think I should be able to write a book or two with all these advantages."

"I am glad you see it in a proper light, Thomas," said Mrs. Dumbury, graciously. "You will no doubt be enabled to do useful work under the conditions I have mentioned."

"I hope to do useful work under any and all conditions, sister Julia," said Tom Christmas. "But my work does not seem to lie in the direction you wish me to take. I am sorry that I cannot meet your wishes."

"Not—meet—my—wishes!" Mrs. Dumbury was astonished.

"Oh, Tom," cried Maggie. "And I was so pleased!"

"My dearest," said Tom, laying his broad hand on his sweetheart's little fingers, and speaking in his slow, deliberate way, "I dare say you were pleased. I suppose the mention of seven hundred a year would call up pleasurable ideas in every one's mind. Unfortunately, Maggie, ​it is quite impossible for me to do what Julia wishes."

"And why, pray?" asked Mrs. Dumbury.

"My dear Julia," said Tom Christmas, "do not my reasons occur to you at once?"

"I know of no reasons, Thomas, which would support you in your denial," said the Bishop's lady.

"Yet there are many. In the first place, I am not a member of the church in which you wish me to minister."

Mrs. Dumbury stiffened out and raised her head.

"Become a member, Thomas Christmas. I have talked to you of it more than once."

"You have, Julia. But that is impossible. I cannot accept your offer, kind as it is; for I neither belong to your sect nor approve its doctrines."

"Approve—its—doctrines! Thomas Christmas! Doctrines? But that will do. I have ​done my best for my family, and I have failed. You might, however, have remembered that you are thinking of marriage, and that some one beside yourself would have enjoyed and benefited by the position I offered."

A clever shot, Julia Dumbury, a very clever shot. Tom Christmas turned his head and looked at Maggie, and she did not look back at him with eyes full of trust and confidence, as she should have done—and as, alas! very few women would do—but kept them fixed on the fire. He sighed and went out of the room, giving my arm a fervent squeeze as he passed me. And soon after that, I went upstairs and found him writing as if for dear life at his rickety table in the shabby attic. He was not going to be a Dumburyite in spite of his poverty and his hard work.

It was, perhaps, natural that Maggie Primrose should not quite understand Tom's reasons for declining his sister's well-meant offer. She looked ​upon Tom as the most saintly and perfect of mortals, and would, I have no doubt, felt able to recommend him, if she had ever had the chance, for the first deanery or bishopric that offered. When Julia spoke of Tom as an unbeliever, and backslider, and general religious ne'er-do-weel, Maggie's brown eyes would flash indignant fire and her red lips pout in righteous protest. Tom, she knew, was the best and kindest of mortals. And yet she could not understand his scruples about Mrs. Dumbury's offer.

The Bishop's lady returned to the episcopal palace in deep chagrin, and Tom went on with his daily routine at Mr. Spivey's establishment. And from that time there was a great coolness between the Grandchester people and their humble relation.

It was very soon after this episode that Mr. Spivey issued his instructions to Tom about the Australian voyage, and I think that the chief cause of Maggie's regret was the thought ​that Tom, if he had only seen his way to accepting Mrs. Dumbury's offer, might have remained at home and made his fortune in more convenient fashion. I tried to console her for Tom's departure, by pointing out to her how advantageous his trip to the Colonies would be in more than one sense. I bade her remember that he would not be absent many months, and that accidents do not often happen nowadays to well-appointed steamers. I told her that if Tom carried his business to a successful issue, Mr. Spivey would infallibly raise his salary to that five pounds per week, which was the present height of Tom's ambition. But no word of consolation found favour in Maggie's ears, for she seemed to have some prevision of coming evil.

The day of Tom's departure came with lightning-like rapidity to Maggie and me, and at last he had got his leave-taking over and he and I were driving away to the station.

​"You'll take care of Maggie, Len?" he said, looking at me wistfully.

"As if she were my own sister, Tom. Make yourself easy on her account. And we shall have you back, you know, in no time at all."

"Ay," he said, dreamily, "six or eight months is not a long time. And yet who knows what may not happen in six months? Take care of them both, Len, my dear, till I come back."

And then I pressed his hand and said good-bye, and the train had carried him away, and I was left in charge of the two women for whom he thought and worked. Somehow I felt that the world seemed darker and less comfortable with Tom Christmas removed from my part of it. Spivey's establishment, indeed, seemed miserable without him. Mr. Jones had been promoted to Tom's place, and general chaos and confusion was the result for some days. Spivey got bad-tempered, and more than ​once declared his intention of wiring for Christmas to come back. The adage that a good workman's never appreciated until he's lost, was fully exemplified in Tom Christmas's case.

We were very dull in Canonbury Square after Tom's departure. Mrs. Christmas, it is true, was full of reminiscences and told us on the day of her son's sailing a long story about her great uncle Piker, who was a sea-going party and came to a watery grave in the English Channel, on the very spot over which Tom's steamer was probably passing just then. But this had anything but a cheering effect on Maggie Primrose, and it taxed my best energies to divert her mind from its sad thoughts. How she got on during the day I don't know; but I never returned from the City at night without finding her and Mrs. Christmas talking together, or rather finding the elder lady talking and the younger listening. And as Mrs. Christmas's stories were invariably of the shipwrecky ​order, I fancy that poor Maggie grew to regard horrors and sorrows as her natural daily food.

I was not sorry, when I came home rather late one evening, to find Lestrange sitting with my two charges. Maggie Primrose looked brighter and less distrait, and Mrs. Christmas was listening to Lestrange, content to play the part of audience now that a more capable entertainer was present. And Lestrange had plenty to talk about. We had not seen him for three months, and we asked him where he had been. He had been on the Continent, he told us, in France, and Germany, and Italy; one of his uneasy fits having seized him soon after Christmas, and driven him forth to wander in some sunnier clime. And for Maggie's benefit he proceeded to tell us all that he had seen, and made himself so very agreeable and entertaining that midnight came and took us unawares and found even Mrs. Christmas wide ​awake and much interested. I let him out when he rose to go and walked a few yards along the Square with him, telling him how it was that Tom had left us, and informing him that Maggie had felt his departure very keenly. And he was kind enough to say that he would come again soon and help me to entertain Mrs. Christmas and Miss Primrose, and keep the one from thinking about shipwrecks and kindred disasters, and the other from brooding over her lover's absence. And, in accordance with this promise, he came again the following week, and brought Mrs. Christmas a number of Continental views, and Maggie a box full of novels. And after that he began to come regularly, so that we looked forward to his visits as a matter of course, and thought it strange if he did not present himself. But he seldom failed to put in an appearance, though he was very often obliged to call in the afternoon instead of evening, so that I ​personally was not benefited. On these occasions, however, the two ladies had so much to tell me about Mr. Lestrange, that I rarely missed much of what he had said.

I grew to like Lestrange. I had disliked him at first, and had then grown to admire him against my will; finally yielding myself to his fascinating and agreeable manners, until I thought him one of the most accomplished and brilliant men in the world. Very soon I no longer wondered that Tom Christmas should think so much of him, or that the ladies of our circle should look upon him as a sort of Admirable Crichton and Chevalier Bayard rolled into one. An hour's chat with him was a sort of epic poem, gorgeous and highly scented; a sort of Eastern panorama and Arabian Nights' Entertainment, so much had he seen and so well could he recount his experiences. He never seemed to weary in endeavouring to divert his audience, and even ​the most stupid of listeners met with the greatest consideration at his hands. Mrs. Christmas, who usually went to sleep unless her own tongue kept her awake, never yielded to slumber when Lestrange talked to her; while Maggie Primrose was absolutely fascinated by him, and would sit for an hour with her large brown eyes fastened on him, looking for all the world like some one in a dream.

It never occurred to me at that time that it might be dangerous to Tom Christmas's interests for this very brilliant young man to come so constantly to our house. And yet I might have known, if I had not been so very young and inexperienced, that Tom Christmas must suffer in comparison with Lestrange. Tom was one of the most prosaic individuals in existence, despite the fact that he had once written verses. He was so absolutely scientific, too, that he killed whatever poetic ​inspiration arose within him by criticism and analysis. If anything of an emotional nature suggested itself to him his first concern was to analyse it and see from whence it sprung, so that a miracle became a process of electricity, and a rainbow the result of a natural law. What he and Maggie used to talk about in their evening perambulations I have often wondered; but Tom's favourite theme when talking with anybody was not anything that would much interest a young lady more or less romantically disposed. Moreover, he was usually a bad listener, as most great talkers generally are, and would resume his own subject at the end of his companion's remarks as if the latter had never uttered a syllable. In this respect Lestrange was sure to compare favourably with him in a lady's eyes. He was eminently poetic, and romantic, and sympathetic; he abhorred scientific methods; and was quite sentimental in his social and religious views, ​whereas Tom Christmas was matter-of-fact in the one and sceptical in the other.

I suppose it was only natural that Maggie Primrose, in Tom's absence, should turn to Lestrange with something more than mere admiration. I don't remember when it was that I first noticed the change in her manner. But when two or three of the summer months had gone, and Lestrange still paid us his weekly visit, I began to notice that Maggie looked forward to his coming with unconcealed pleasure. All sorts of little signs and symptoms began to make themselves apparent to me. Now it was a new method of dressing her brown hair, now a bright ribbon or dainty apron. All innocent things enough, and yet done, consciously or unconsciously, with the idea of making herself more pleasing in the eyes of Lestrange. Other signs there were, too, the heightened colour when his knock sounded at the door, the bright blush and half-averted eyes when she gave him her hand. And yet, fool ​that I was, I could not see in these things the danger-signal out against Tom Christmas. If I had been clear-sighted enough to see it, could I have done anything to avert the disaster that was coming?