第 68 页

'And my complaint is,' pursued the lady, disregarding the low remark,

'that it is not the tone of Society, and that you ought to correct

it, Mr Merdle. If you have any doubt of my judgment, ask even Edmund

Sparkler.' The door of the room had opened, and Mrs Merdle now surveyed

the head of her son through her glass. 'Edmund; we want you here.'

Mr Sparkler, who had merely put in his head and looked round the room

without entering (as if he were searching the house for that young lady

with no nonsense about her), upon this followed up his head with his

body, and stood before them. To whom, in a few easy words adapted to his

capacity, Mrs Merdle stated the question at issue.

The young gentleman, after anxiously feeling his shirt-collar as if it

were his pulse and he were hypochondriacal, observed, 'That he had heard

it noticed by fellers.'

'Edmund Sparkler has heard it noticed,' said Mrs Merdle, with languid

triumph. 'Why, no doubt everybody has heard it noticed!' Which in truth

was no unreasonable inference; seeing that Mr Sparkler would probably be

the last person, in any assemblage of the human species, to receive an

impression from anything that passed in his presence.

'And Edmund Sparkler will tell you, I dare say,' said Mrs Merdle, waving

her favourite hand towards her husband, 'how he has heard it noticed.'

'I couldn't,' said Mr Sparkler, after feeling his pulse as before,

'couldn't undertake to say what led to it--'cause memory desperate

loose. But being in company with the brother of a doosed fine gal--well

educated too--with no biggodd nonsense about her--at the period alluded

to--'

'There! Never mind the sister,' remarked Mrs Merdle, a little

impatiently. 'What did the brother say?'

'Didn't say a word, ma'am,' answered Mr Sparkler. 'As silent a feller as

myself. Equally hard up for a remark.'

'Somebody said something,' returned Mrs Merdle. 'Never mind who it was.'

('Assure you I don't in the least,' said Mr Sparkler.)

'But tell us what it was.'

Mr Sparkler referred to his pulse again, and put himself through some

severe mental discipline before he replied:

'Fellers referring to my Governor--expression not my own--occasionally

compliment my Governor in a very handsome way on being immensely rich

and knowing--perfect phenomenon of Buyer and Banker and that--but say

the Shop sits heavily on him. Say he carried the Shop about, on his back

rather--like Jew clothesmen with too much business.'

'Which,' said Mrs Merdle, rising, with her floating drapery about her,

'is exactly my complaint. Edmund, give me your arm up-stairs.'

Mr Merdle, left alone to meditate on a better conformation of himself to

Society, looked out of nine windows in succession, and appeared to

see nine wastes of space. When he had thus entertained himself he went

down-stairs, and looked intently at all the carpets on the ground-floor;

and then came up-stairs again, and looked intently at all the carpets

on the first-floor; as if they were gloomy depths, in unison with his

oppressed soul. Through all the rooms he wandered, as he always did,

like the last person on earth who had any business to approach them. Let

Mrs Merdle announce, with all her might, that she was at Home ever

so many nights in a season, she could not announce more widely and

unmistakably than Mr Merdle did that he was never at home.

At last he met the chief butler, the sight of which splendid retainer

always finished him. Extinguished by this great creature, he sneaked

to his dressing-room, and there remained shut up until he rode out to

dinner, with Mrs Merdle, in her own handsome chariot. At dinner, he was

envied and flattered as a being of might, was Treasuried, Barred, and

Bishoped, as much as he would; and an hour after midnight came home

alone, and being instantly put out again in his own hall, like a

rushlight, by the chief butler, went sighing to bed.

CHAPTER 34. A Shoal of Barnacles

Mr Henry Gowan and the dog were established frequenters of the cottage,

and the day was fixed for the wedding. There was to be a convocation of

Barnacles on the occasion, in order that that very high and very large

family might shed as much lustre on the marriage as so dim an event was

capable of receiving.

To have got the whole Barnacle family together would have been

impossible for two reasons. Firstly, because no building could have held

all the members and connections of that illustrious house. Secondly,

because wherever there was a square yard of ground in British occupation

under the sun or moon, with a public post upon it, sticking to that post

was a Barnacle. No intrepid navigator could plant a flag-staff upon any

spot of earth, and take possession of it in the British name, but

to that spot of earth, so soon as the discovery was known, the

Circumlocution Office sent out a Barnacle and a despatch-box. Thus the

Barnacles were all over the world, in every direction--despatch-boxing

the compass.

But, while the so-potent art of Prospero himself would have failed in

summoning the Barnacles from every speck of ocean and dry land on

which there was nothing (except mischief) to be done and anything to be

pocketed, it was perfectly feasible to assemble a good many Barnacles.

This Mrs Gowan applied herself to do; calling on Mr Meagles frequently

with new additions to the list, and holding conferences with that

gentleman when he was not engaged (as he generally was at this period)

in examining and paying the debts of his future son-in-law, in the

apartment of scales and scoops.

One marriage guest there was, in reference to whose presence Mr Meagles

felt a nearer interest and concern than in the attendance of the most

elevated Barnacle expected; though he was far from insensible of the

honour of having such company. This guest was Clennam. But Clennam had

made a promise he held sacred, among the trees that summer night, and,

in the chivalry of his heart, regarded it as binding him to many implied

obligations. In forgetfulness of himself, and delicate service to her on

all occasions, he was never to fail; to begin it, he answered Mr Meagles

cheerfully, 'I shall come, of course.'

His partner, Daniel Doyce, was something of a stumbling-block in Mr

Meagles's way, the worthy gentleman being not at all clear in his own

anxious mind but that the mingling of Daniel with official Barnacleism

might produce some explosive combination, even at a marriage breakfast.

The national offender, however, lightened him of his uneasiness by

coming down to Twickenham to represent that he begged, with the freedom

of an old friend, and as a favour to one, that he might not be invited.

'For,' said he, 'as my business with this set of gentlemen was to do a

public duty and a public service, and as their business with me was to

prevent it by wearing my soul out, I think we had better not eat and

drink together with a show of being of one mind.' Mr Meagles was much

amused by his friend's oddity; and patronised him with a more protecting

air of allowance than usual, when he rejoined: 'Well, well, Dan, you

shall have your own crotchety way.'

To Mr Henry Gowan, as the time approached, Clennam tried to convey

by all quiet and unpretending means, that he was frankly and

disinterestedly desirous of tendering him any friendship he would

accept. Mr Gowan treated him in return with his usual ease, and with his

usual show of confidence, which was no confidence at all.

'You see, Clennam,' he happened to remark in the course of conversation

one day, when they were walking near the Cottage within a week of the

marriage, 'I am a disappointed man. That you know already.'

'Upon my word,' said Clennam, a little embarrassed, 'I scarcely know

how.'

'Why,' returned Gowan, 'I belong to a clan, or a clique, or a family, or

a connection, or whatever you like to call it, that might have provided

for me in any one of fifty ways, and that took it into its head not to

do it at all. So here I am, a poor devil of an artist.'

Clennam was beginning, 'But on the other hand--' when Gowan took him up.

'Yes, yes, I know. I have the good fortune of being beloved by a

beautiful and charming girl whom I love with all my heart.' ('Is there

much of it?' Clennam thought. And as he thought it, felt ashamed of

himself.)

'And of finding a father-in-law who is a capital fellow and a liberal

good old boy. Still, I had other prospects washed and combed into my

childish head when it was washed and combed for me, and I took them to

a public school when I washed and combed it for myself, and I am here

without them, and thus I am a disappointed man.'

Clennam thought (and as he thought it, again felt ashamed of himself),

was this notion of being disappointed in life, an assertion of station

which the bridegroom brought into the family as his property, having

already carried it detrimentally into his pursuit? And was it a hopeful

or a promising thing anywhere?

'Not bitterly disappointed, I think,' he said aloud. 'Hang it, no; not

bitterly,' laughed Gowan. 'My people are not worth that--though they are

charming fellows, and I have the greatest affection for them. Besides,

it's pleasant to show them that I can do without them, and that they may

all go to the Devil. And besides, again, most men are disappointed in

life, somehow or other, and influenced by their disappointment. But it's

a dear good world, and I love it!'

'It lies fair before you now,' said Arthur.

'Fair as this summer river,' cried the other, with enthusiasm, 'and by

Jove I glow with admiration of it, and with ardour to run a race in it.

It's the best of old worlds! And my calling! The best of old callings,

isn't it?'

'Full of interest and ambition, I conceive,' said Clennam.

'And imposition,' added Gowan, laughing; 'we won't leave out the

imposition. I hope I may not break down in that; but there, my being

a disappointed man may show itself. I may not be able to face it out

gravely enough. Between you and me, I think there is some danger of my

being just enough soured not to be able to do that.'

'To do what?' asked Clennam.

'To keep it up. To help myself in my turn, as the man before me helps

himself in his, and pass the bottle of smoke. To keep up the pretence

as to labour, and study, and patience, and being devoted to my art, and

giving up many solitary days to it, and abandoning many pleasures for

it, and living in it, and all the rest of it--in short, to pass the

bottle of smoke according to rule.'

'But it is well for a man to respect his own vocation, whatever it is;

and to think himself bound to uphold it, and to claim for it the respect

it deserves; is it not?' Arthur reasoned. 'And your vocation, Gowan,

may really demand this suit and service. I confess I should have thought

that all Art did.'

'What a good fellow you are, Clennam!' exclaimed the other, stopping

to look at him, as if with irrepressible admiration. 'What a capital

fellow! You have never been disappointed. That's easy to see.'

It would have been so cruel if he had meant it, that Clennam firmly

resolved to believe he did not mean it. Gowan, without pausing, laid his

hand upon his shoulder, and laughingly and lightly went on:

'Clennam, I don't like to dispel your generous visions, and I would give

any money (if I had any), to live in such a rose-coloured mist. But what

I do in my trade, I do to sell. What all we fellows do, we do to

sell. If we didn't want to sell it for the most we can get for it, we

shouldn't do it. Being work, it has to be done; but it's easily enough

done. All the rest is hocus-pocus.

Now here's one of the advantages, or disadvantages, of knowing a

disappointed man. You hear the truth.'

Whatever he had heard, and whether it deserved that name or another, it

sank into Clennam's mind. It so took root there, that he began to fear

Henry Gowan would always be a trouble to him, and that so far he had

gained little or nothing from the dismissal of Nobody, with all his

inconsistencies, anxieties, and contradictions. He found a contest still

always going on in his breast between his promise to keep Gowan in

none but good aspects before the mind of Mr Meagles, and his enforced

observation of Gowan in aspects that had no good in them. Nor could he

quite support his own conscientious nature against misgivings that he

distorted and discoloured himself, by reminding himself that he never

sought those discoveries, and that he would have avoided them with

willingness and great relief. For he never could forget what he had

been; and he knew that he had once disliked Gowan for no better reason

than that he had come in his way.

Harassed by these thoughts, he now began to wish the marriage over,

Gowan and his young wife gone, and himself left to fulfil his promise,

and discharge the generous function he had accepted. This last week was,

in truth, an uneasy interval for the whole house. Before Pet, or before

Gowan, Mr Meagles was radiant; but Clennam had more than once found him

alone, with his view of the scales and scoop much blurred, and had often

seen him look after the lovers, in the garden or elsewhere when he was

not seen by them, with the old clouded face on which Gowan had fallen

like a shadow. In the arrangement of the house for the great occasion,

many little reminders of the old travels of the father and mother

and daughter had to be disturbed and passed from hand to hand; and

sometimes, in the midst of these mute witnesses, to the life they had

had together, even Pet herself would yield to lamenting and weeping.

Mrs Meagles, the blithest and busiest of mothers, went about singing