A Dark Night's Work (5 page)

Mr. Corbet had lately fallen into the habit of walking up to Ford Bank
for
The Times
every day, near twelve o'clock, and lounging about in the
garden until one; not exactly with either Ellinor or Miss Monro, but
certainly far more at the beck and call of the one than of the other.

Miss Monro used to think he would have been glad to stay and lunch at
their early dinner, but she never gave the invitation, and he could not
well stay without her expressed sanction. He told Ellinor all about his
mother and sisters, and their ways of going on, and spoke of them and of
his father as of people she was one day certain to know, and to know
intimately; and she did not question or doubt this view of things; she
simply acquiesced.

He had some discussion with himself as to whether he should speak to her,
and so secure her promise to be his before returning to Cambridge or not.
He did not like the formality of an application to Mr. Wilkins, which
would, after all, have been the proper and straightforward course to
pursue with a girl of her age—she was barely sixteen. Not that he
anticipated any difficulty on Mr. Wilkins's part; his approval of the
intimacy which at their respective ages was pretty sure to lead to an
attachment, was made as evident as could be by actions without words. But
there would have to be reference to his own father, who had no notion of
the whole affair, and would be sure to treat it as a boyish fancy; as if
at twenty-one Ralph was not a man, as clear and deliberative in knowing
his own mind, as resolute as he ever would be in deciding upon the course
of exertion that should lead him to independence and fame, if such were
to be attained by clear intellect and a strong will.

No; to Mr. Wilkins he would not speak for another year or two.

But should he tell Ellinor in direct terms of his love—his intention to
marry her?

Again he inclined to the more prudent course of silence. He was not
afraid of any change in his own inclinations: of them he was sure. But
he looked upon it in this way: If he made a regular declaration to her
she would be bound to tell it to her father. He should not respect her
or like her so much if she did not. And yet this course would lead to
all the conversations, and discussions, and references to his own father,
which made his own direct appeal to Mr. Wilkins appear a premature step
to him.

Whereas he was as sure of Ellinor's love for him as if she had uttered
all the vows that women ever spoke; he knew even better than she did how
fully and entirely that innocent girlish heart was his own. He was too
proud to dread her inconstancy for an instant; "besides," as he went on
to himself, as if to make assurance doubly sure, "whom does she see?
Those stupid Holsters, who ought to be only too proud of having such a
girl for their cousin, ignore her existence, and spoke slightingly of her
father only the very last time I dined there. The country people in this
precisely Boeotian —shire clutch at me because my father goes up to the
Plantagenets for his pedigree—not one whit for myself—and neglect
Ellinor; and only condescend to her father because old Wilkins was nobody-
knows-who's son. So much the worse for them, but so much the better for
me in this case. I'm above their silly antiquated prejudices, and shall
be only too glad when the fitting time comes to make Ellinor my wife.
After all, a prosperous attorney's daughter may not be considered an
unsuitable match for me—younger son as I am. Ellinor will make a
glorious woman three or four years hence; just the style my father
admires—such a figure, such limbs. I'll be patient, and bide my time,
and watch my opportunities, and all will come right."

So he bade Ellinor farewell in a most reluctant and affectionate manner,
although his words might have been spoken out in Hamley market-place, and
were little different from what he said to Miss Monro. Mr. Wilkins half
expected a disclosure to himself of the love which he suspected in the
young man; and when that did not come, he prepared himself for a
confidence from Ellinor. But she had nothing to tell him, as he very
well perceived from the child's open unembarrassed manner when they were
left alone together after dinner. He had refused an invitation, and
shaken off Mr. Ness, in order to have this confidential
tete-a-tete
with his motherless girl; and there was nothing to make confidence of. He
was half inclined to be angry; but then he saw that, although sad, she
was so much at peace with herself and with the world, that he, always an
optimist, began to think the young man had done wisely in not tearing
open the rosebud of her feelings too prematurely.

The next two years passed over in much the same way—or a careless
spectator might have thought so. I have heard people say, that if you
look at a regiment advancing with steady step over a plain on a review-
day, you can hardly tell that they are not merely marking time on one
spot of ground, unless you compare their position with some other object
by which to mark their progress, so even is the repetition of the
movement. And thus the sad events of the future life of this father and
daughter were hardly perceived in their steady advance, and yet over the
monotony and flat uniformity of their days sorrow came marching down upon
them like an armed man. Long before Mr. Wilkins had recognised its
shape, it was approaching him in the distance—as, in fact, it is
approaching all of us at this very time; you, reader, I, writer, have
each our great sorrow bearing down upon us. It may be yet beyond the
dimmest point of our horizon, but in the stillness of the night our
hearts shrink at the sound of its coming footstep. Well is it for those
who fall into the hands of the Lord rather than into the hands of men;
but worst of all is it for him who has hereafter to mingle the gall of
remorse with the cup held out to him by his doom.

Mr. Wilkins took his ease and his pleasure yet more and more every year
of his life; nor did the quality of his ease and his pleasure improve; it
seldom does with self-indulgent people. He cared less for any books that
strained his faculties a little—less for engravings and
sculptures—perhaps more for pictures. He spent extravagantly on his
horses; "thought of eating and drinking." There was no open vice in all
this, so that any awful temptation to crime should come down upon him,
and startle him out of his mode of thinking and living; half the people
about him did much the same, as far as their lives were patent to his
unreflecting observation. But most of his associates had their duties to
do, and did them with a heart and a will, in the hours when he was not in
their company. Yes! I call them duties, though some of them might be
self-imposed and purely social; they were engagements they had entered
into, either tacitly or with words, and that they fulfilled. From Mr.
Hetherington, the Master of the Hounds, who was up at—no one knows what
hour, to go down to the kennel and see that the men did their work well
and thoroughly, to stern old Sir Lionel Playfair, the upright magistrate,
the thoughtful, conscientious landlord—they did their work according to
their lights; there were few laggards among those with whom Mr. Wilkins
associated in the field or at the dinner-table. Mr. Ness—though as a
clergyman he was not so active as he might have been—yet even Mr. Ness
fagged away with his pupils and his new edition of one of the classics.
Only Mr. Wilkins, dissatisfied with his position, neglected to fulfil the
duties thereof. He imitated the pleasures, and longed for the fancied
leisure of those about him; leisure that he imagined would be so much
more valuable in the hands of a man like himself, full of intellectual
tastes and accomplishments, than frittered away by dull boors of
untravelled, uncultivated squires—whose company, however, be it said by
the way, he never refused.

And yet daily Mr. Wilkins was sinking from the intellectually to the
sensually self-indulgent man. He lay late in bed, and hated Mr. Dunster
for his significant glance at the office-clock when he announced to his
master that such and such a client had been waiting more than an hour to
keep an appointment. "Why didn't you see him yourself, Dunster? I'm
sure you would have done quite as well as me," Mr. Wilkins sometimes
replied, partly with a view of saying something pleasant to the man whom
he disliked and feared. Mr. Dunster always replied, in a meek matter-of-
fact tone, "Oh, sir, they wouldn't like to talk over their affairs with a
subordinate."

And every time he said this, or some speech of the same kind, the idea
came more and more clearly into Mr. Wilkins's head, of how pleasant it
would be to himself to take Dunster into partnership, and thus throw all
the responsibility of the real work and drudgery upon his clerk's
shoulders. Importunate clients, who would make appointments at
unseasonable hours and would keep to them, might confide in the partner,
though they would not in the clerk. The great objections to this course
were, first and foremost, Mr. Wilkins's strong dislike to Mr. Dunster—his
repugnance to his company, his dress, his voice, his ways—all of which
irritated his employer, till his state of feeling towards Dunster might
be called antipathy; next, Mr. Wilkins was fully aware of the fact that
all Mr. Dunster's actions and words were carefully and thoughtfully pre-
arranged to further the great unspoken desire of his life—that of being
made a partner where he now was only a servant. Mr. Wilkins took a
malicious pleasure in tantalizing Mr. Dunster by such speeches as the one
I have just mentioned, which always seemed like an opening to the desired
end, but still for a long time never led any further. Yet all the while
that end was becoming more and more certain, and at last it was reached.

Mr. Dunster always suspected that the final push was given by some
circumstance from without; some reprimand for neglect—some threat of
withdrawal of business which his employer had received; but of this he
could not be certain; all he knew was, that Mr. Wilkins proposed the
partnership to him in about as ungracious a way as such an offer could be
made; an ungraciousness which, after all, had so little effect on the
real matter in hand, that Mr. Dunster could pass over it with a private
sneer, while taking all possible advantage of the tangible benefit it was
now in his power to accept.

Mr. Corbet's attachment to Ellinor had been formally disclosed to her
just before this time. He had left college, entered at the Middle
Temple, and was fagging away at law, and feeling success in his own
power; Ellinor was to "come out" at the next Hamley assemblies; and her
lover began to be jealous of the possible admirers her striking
appearance and piquant conversation might attract, and thought it a good
time to make the success of his suit certain by spoken words and
promises.

He needed not have alarmed himself even enough to make him take this
step, if he had been capable of understanding Ellinor's heart as fully as
he did her appearance and conversation. She never missed the absence of
formal words and promises. She considered herself as fully engaged to
him, as much pledged to marry him and no one else, before he had asked
the final question, as afterwards. She was rather surprised at the
necessity for those decisive words,

"Ellinor, dearest, will you—can you marry me?" and her reply was—given
with a deep blush I must record, and in a soft murmuring tone—

"Yes—oh, yes—I never thought of anything else."

"Then I may speak to your father, may not I, darling?"

"He knows; I am sure he knows; and he likes you so much. Oh, how happy I
am!"

"But still I must speak to him before I go. When can I see him, my
Ellinor? I must go back to town at four o'clock."

"I heard his voice in the stable-yard only just before you came. Let me
go and find out if he is gone to the office yet."

No! to be sure he was not gone. He was quietly smoking a cigar in his
study, sitting in an easy-chair near the open window, and leisurely
glancing at all the advertisements in
The Times
. He hated going to the
office more and more since Dunster had become a partner; that fellow gave
himself such airs of investigation and reprehension.

He got up, took the cigar out of his mouth, and placed a chair for Mr.
Corbet, knowing well why he had thus formally prefaced his entrance into
the room with a—

"Can I have a few minutes' conversation with you, Mr. Wilkins?"

"Certainly, my dear fellow. Sit down. Will you have a cigar?"

"No! I never smoke." Mr. Corbet despised all these kinds of
indulgences, and put a little severity into his refusal, but quite
unintentionally; for though he was thankful he was not as other men, he
was not at all the person to trouble himself unnecessarily with their
reformation.

"I want to speak to you about Ellinor. She says she thinks you must be
aware of our mutual attachment."

"Well," said Mr. Wilkins—he had resumed his cigar, partly to conceal his
agitation at what he knew was coming—"I believe I have had my
suspicions. It is not very long since I was young myself." And he
sighed over the recollection of Lettice, and his fresh, hopeful youth.

"And I hope, sir, as you have been aware of it, and have never manifested
any disapprobation of it, that you will not refuse your consent—a
consent I now ask you for—to our marriage."

Mr. Wilkins did not speak for a little while—a touch, a thought, a word
more would have brought him to tears; for at the last he found it hard to
give the consent which would part him from his only child. Suddenly he
got up, and putting his hand into that of the anxious lover (for his
silence had rendered Mr. Corbet anxious up to a certain point of
perplexity—he could not understand the implied he would and he would
not), Mr. Wilkins said,