Read Ebook: Jilted! Or My Uncle's Scheme Volume 1 by Russell William Clark

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Ebook has 559 lines and 31592 words, and 12 pages

PAGE

JILTED!

OR,

MY UNCLE'S SCHEME.

MY UNCLE'S SCHEME.

My father was a major in the army who, at the time this story begins, had lived in Longueville-sur-mer for fifteen years, to which place he had come, after my mother's death, bringing me with him. I was then seven years old. He put me to a good school in the neighbourhood, at which I remained until I was sixteen; and was then let free. Considering myself a man, I worked hard to grow a mustache, in which I very ignominiously failed; for it was not until I was one-and-twenty that nature condescended to favour me with that very elegant and martial decoration. I also took to colouring meerschaum pipes, in which art, before I was nineteen, I was considered by my companions to excel, though I did not succeed in establishing my reputation in that line until I had dealt such an injury to my nervous system as I fear I shall never recover. I also became, before long, an expert hand at billiards, though up to the last Bob Le Marchmont could always give me twenty points and beat me comfortably. But I was his better at whist, and was indeed a match for several grave old gentlemen who were members of our English Club in the Rue des Chiens.

There can be no doubt that after I left school my father ought to have put me to one of the professions, or entered me in a house of business. He had two brothers, one of whom owned a private bank, the other was a retired stock-broker; and either of them, as they afterwards told me, would have been very glad to take me by the hand, had my father applied to them. But he was by nature a reckless man: by reckless I mean that he never troubled himself about the future . He hated trouble of any kind or description. If ever he reflected upon the future, he could scarcely, I am sure, understand that it should mean more than a perpetual succession of morning strolls, and afternoon siestas, and evening whist parties. He pursued day after day, with automatic regularity, a small round of trifling and monotonous distractions, which by degrees girdled his existence with the narrowest possible horizon, and prevented him from sympathising with any needs which, like mine, lay outside the sphere of his daily routine.

But, as my father would often say, apr?pos of nothing, "Facts, my boy, are stronger than prejudices;" and a very undeniable fact was that, though billiards, and smoking, and boating, and spooning by moonlight are highly agreeable pursuits, they could not in any fashion whatever contribute to my existence when it pleased heaven to call my father away. I wonder I never thought of this. However, when I was hard upon three-and-twenty, a change came. This is the story of it.

As the soldiers walked off, gesticulating as if at any moment they would throw their caps down and fight it out, in came my father, took up the letter, pulled out his glasses, and having read a little, called out--

"Charlie, here's news for you."

"GROVE END, UPDOWN, "May --, 18--.

"MY DEAR BROTHER,

"I was very glad to get your letter, for, guessing roughly, I should say it is not a day less than four years since I last heard from you. You hate the sea; yet you managed to cross the Channel once; can't you cross it again and spend a few weeks with us?"

"I can give you some capital Burgundy, my cook knows her work, and though society here is rather drab-coloured, I can pick you out enough people to keep you well stocked with rubbers."

"And now to business," continued the letter. "You want to place your son. Would he like to be a banker's clerk?"

"One of my clerks is leaving me. His salary is ?100. I will make it ?150 for your son, if he will come. He can either live in lodgings or with us. He may prefer the former; but I think he will find our house more comfortable than any apartments he can get at Updown. The place will be vacant next week, and he can join when he likes.

"Richard was with me last month."

"Do you know that he has changed his quarters, and purchased an estate at Shandon?"

"He has grown very corpulent, and hankers after his old trade. A gain of ?10 makes him giddy with joy; and he will forget, amid his transports, that he lost a hundred or more last account. His daughter Theresa has grown a fine woman. I shall be curious to see your son, who scarcely reached to my knee when I last saw him.

"My wife and Constance send all manner of kind messages.

"Believe me, dear Charles, "Your affectionate brother, "THOMAS HARGRAVE."

"About?" cried my father: "why, about you."

"What made you write? You didn't tell me you had done so."

"Because I wasn't sure that anything would come of it. Why, this is from your uncle Tom. Didn't you know you had such an uncle?"

"Of course I knew--but what made you write?"

"Oh, no doubt he is very kind," I answered, wishing both him and old Harris at Jericho. "But I haven't any particular wish to leave here."

"True, but this is no place for a young man. What's your age? Three-and-twenty. My dear boy, at three-and-twenty William Pitt was First Lord of the Treasury. What you have to consider is, I am fifty years old" , "and at fifty a man is no longer young."

"That is true," said I, somewhat impressed, for these were considerations that, so far as I could remember, had never before disturbed either of us.

"When I die," continued my father, "my pay dies with me. I have saved nothing--what have I to save? This is not so cheap a place to live in as people think. There was, indeed, a time when ten francs would purchase poultry enough to stock a hotel for a week, but now I can scarcely put a pair of fowls on my table for that money. When I die, what is to become of you? If you don't think of that now, you will find yourself in a muddle some of these days. Tom can be the making of you if he likes. A hundred and fifty a year, let me tell you, is a very handsome beginning."

"Yes; but a banker's clerk!"

"You needn't call yourself that. You'll be known as your uncle's nephew, and I should always speak of you as a banker. And after all, what does it signify what you're called, so long as you have prospects?"

"I know I can't do any good by remaining here," said I, gloomily; "but that doesn't make me want to leave."

"Man," answered my father with the solemnity of a Rasselas, "is not a vegetable. Legs were given him to walk with, and the world was made for him to look at. As we advance in life our wants dwindle to a point. No man could ever have started with more copious aspirations than I did, and now whist is the one solitary pleasure that satisfies me. I don't know," he continued, stroking his fine whiskers, "how it came about that I never thought of sending a line to Tom about you before. Answer his letter after breakfast, and take care to thank him for his kindness. I consider his offer a very handsome one."

Indeed it was: and I thought it hard that I should be called upon to act and decide for myself without having received one word of warning that a change was to take place. It was not to be expected that I could let fall at once those prejudices in favour of an idle life which had been the accumulation of six years of steady inactivity.

"All good fortune is sudden," said my father.

"No; apart from my horror of the sea, I should prefer that you entered life alone. There is a dignity in solitude--a suggestion of self-dependence, my boy, that all men of the world admire. Of course on your arrival you will assure everybody of my affectionate and brotherly sentiments."

"I shouldn't mind anything else but a banker's clerk!" I grumbled. "Roget's a banker's clerk, and what a snob he is!"

"Roget's a Frenchman. Don't confound monkeys with men. Always be lordly in your estimates of what you are about. I always was. Nothing gave me greater delight than to be magnificent in trifles. I have read of a composer who invariably sat down to write in full court dress, with fine lace ruffles on, and diamond rings. That was a great man. Let your personal characteristics, if you have any, overtop and overwhelm every consideration that seems in anywise mercenary or humble. Sink the Thing in the Man! Beau Brummel behind a counter showing scarves to gentlemen or silks to ladies, would make haberdasherising a gorgeous calling, fit for monarchs to pursue. If I were a banker's clerk, the whole profession should feel themselves dignified by the accession of a man in whose rich and sumptuous individuality all paltry conditions of his employment should be merged, sunk, and annihilated!"

Saying which, he gave me a magnificent nod, and looked at himself in the glass.

"Happen what will," said I, "I'll live in lodgings. I suppose I shall be fearfully hardworked: but what time I have to myself, I mean to be free in. For anything I can tell, my aunt may hate the smell of tobacco. Perhaps uncle Tom is a one-pipe man, who blows his cloud up the kitchen-chimney. A pleasant look-out for a fellow like me, to find himself in a house, where, after tea, the wife pulls out 'Emma,' or 'Cecilia,' and reads aloud, whilst the husband snorts in an arm-chair, and the daughter works at an altar cloth! Bed at half-past nine--a knock at your door at a quarter to ten, with a shrill request to put your light out, as master's afraid of fire. No boiled mutton and near relations for me! I'd rather be a missionary than endure that sort of thing."

"Well, I can but try banking, and see how I like it," said I, dolefully, accommodating my prejudices after the established fashion.

"Oh, you'll like it," answered my father. "You're not going among strangers: and Tom is too much my brother, I hope, not to know what is due to relations and gentlemen."

Here Celestine brought in the coffee and omelettes, and we sat down to breakfast.

So figure to yourself that I have bidden my father and a group of friends, in deer-stalking hats and tight pantaloons, good-bye, and that I am standing near the man at the wheel, who is steering the "King of the French" out through the piers, and that I continue waving my handkerchief to everybody who will look, until the town sinks behind the cliffs, and the piers melt into thin lines. Then I gaze ahead, and see nothing but a broad expanse of blue leaping water, through which the steamer cuts her way, straight for a cloud, a vague white cloud upon the horizon, which a Frenchman near me tells Madame, his wife, is "Le cliffs to Shak-ess-pear, comedian Angleesh."

The train stopped at Updown station, and out I jumped, leaving behind me, in my eagerness to escape from being carried any further, a new silk umbrella with an ivory handle. My portmanteau, which might have been full of priceless Dresden ware for anything the guard knew, was hurled out of the van on to the platform, where it gave a bound and stood upright, the engine screeched, off went the train, and I was left staring at a short man with a waistcoat that descended considerably below his middle, who, on catching my eye, fell to poking his forehead rapidly with his thumb.

"Mr. Hargrave, sir?" said he interrogatively.

"That's my name," I answered.

"I'm from your uncle, if you please, sir. The phaeton's awaitin' outside. Is that all your luggage, sir?"

"That's all."

The groom or coachman, or whatever he was, pounced upon the portmanteau, hoisted it on to his shoulders, and led the way out of the station into a green lane, where stood a neat little trap, into which he bade me jump. I was not fond of jumping. All my traditions were opposed to violent exercise. I clambered leisurely on to the front seat, my companion seized the reins, and the smart chestnut mare, lustrous with brass-mounted harness, started off at a quick trot.

"Where are you going to drive me to?" I asked.

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