Arminell, Vol. 3

Arminell stood turning over the disfigured volume, speculating on how it had come into Thomasine’s hands, and thinking of the occasion when she had last read it; and so thinking, for a moment she forgot the rabbit with its incongruous garnishment, and why she had descended to the kitchen. She was roused from her reverie by the maid-of-all-work coming in excitedly.

“Oh my, miss! What do you think? Thomasine has flown out at missus, and packed up her things in a bundle, and gone.”

“Thomasine gone!”

“Lawk, miss! She wouldn’t stand no nonsense, she said; and if the missus didn’t like her cooking she might cook for herself. She wouldn’t stay. Thomasine had a flaming temper; it’s the way of them red-headed girls.”

“Thomasine gone!”

“Gone in a tantrum, her cheeks as red as her head. I can’t think what folks find to admire in her hair. It is thick and red. I don’t fancy carrots.”

“But whither is she gone? She is a stranger in London, and has no friends.”

“I don’t suppose, miss, she knows herself.”

“Has she gone back to Mrs. Saltren?”

“I don’t fancy so. She was in such a rage, she thought of nothing but going, and never even asked for her wage.”

“Do you know in which direction she went?”

“No, I was not on the look-out. She came flaring on me to give me good-bye, and away she went. She said that as the missus had insulted her, go she would to where she would be valued.”

“Have you no idea where she is gone?”

“I don’t know.” The girl hesitated, then said, “Thomasine said as how there was a gentleman at the hotel where Mrs. Saltren first was, who admired her and said she ought never to demean herself to go into service – I can’t say, she has spoken of him once or twice, and I fancy he came to look for her when she was at the lodgings with Mrs. Saltren – she may have gone to ask his advice what to do and where to go.”

“That is enough,” said Arminell, and ran upstairs, put on her bonnet, and hastened into the street. She was doubtful in which direction to turn, but seeing the postman coming with the letters, she asked him if he had observed a girl with red hair.

“What, the new cook at Mrs. Welsh’s, miss? Oh, yes, she has gone by with a bundle. Very ’ansome girl, that.”

Arminell went down the Avenue, and at the corner encountered a policeman on duty. She asked him the same question. He also had noticed Thomasine. Indeed he knew her. Her splendid build, her profusion of glowing hair, and beautiful complexion were a phenomenon in Shepherd’s Bush, and all milkmen, butchers’ boys, postmen, police, knew and admired her, though she had been in the house of Mrs. Welsh but a fortnight.

“Yes, miss, she’s gone down that way – has a bundle in her hand. I asked her whither she was going and she said she was leaving her situation because her mistress was impudent to her. Wery ’ansome gall, that.”

Arminell went on to a cabstand; she was near the Hammersmith Station. As a disengaged flyman hailed her, she asked him if he had seen a young woman go by carrying a bundle.

“A ’ansome gal with red hair? To be sure. ’Ailed her, but she said she’d take a ’bus.”

Take a ’bus! – she had gone on to that great centre of radiating streets and roads a few steps ahead. Arminell quickened her pace, almost ran, and reached the main artery of traffic between the City and Hammersmith through Kensington. She had a sharp eye, and in a moment saw Thomasine, who was mounting an omnibus. She ran, as the horses started – ran, regardless of what any one might think, but could not overtake the ’bus. She signed to the driver of a passing empty cab.

“Keep up with the Hammersmith omnibus,” she said, panting. “When it stops, set me down. Here is a shilling.” She sprang in, and speedily caught up the scarlet-bodied conveyance, descended from the cab, entered the omnibus, and seated herself beside Thomasine.

She was out of breath, the perspiration ran off her brow, and her heart beat fast. She could not speak, but she laid her hand on that of the girl which rested on the bundle, and the action said, “I have taken you in charge.”

She was beside Thomasine, and could not see her face; she did not attempt to look at her, but kept her hand where she had laid it, till the omnibus halted at Broad Walk in front of Kensington Palace; by this time she had recovered her breath sufficiently to bid the conductor let her out. She rose hastily, still holding Thomasine, who did not stir.

“Come,” said Arminell, “come with me,” and looked the girl straight in the eyes.

Thomasine’s hand quivered under that of Arminell, and her face flushed. She dropped her eyes and rose. In another moment they were together on the pavement.

“We will walk together,” said Miss Inglett, “up the broad avenue. I want to speak to you. I want to know why you are running away, and whither you are going?”

“Please, miss,” answered the girl, “I ain’t going to be spoken to by Mrs. Welsh. Her’s nothing, nor old Welsh neither. He is the brother of Marianne Saltren, and no better than me or my mother. They may set up to be gentlefolk and give themselves airs, but they are only common people like myself.”

“You have made a mistake, Thomasine. You should not have put the currant jelly over the boiled rabbit. Those who make mistakes must have them corrected. How would you like to have your pretty velvet bonnet spoiled by Mrs. Welsh spilling ink over it?”

“I should be angry.”

“Well, it is the same case. You have spoiled the nice dinner she had provided for Mr. Welsh.”

“Welsh is nothing. His father was an old Methody shopkeeper, who ran away, having cheated a lot of folk out of their money. I know all about the Welshes. I’m not going to stand cheek from them.”

“But you will listen to a word from me?”

“Oh, miss, you are different. I wouldn’t be impudent to you for anything. But it is other with them stuck-ups as are no better than myself.”

“You will not try to twist yourself away from me?”

“No, miss.”

“I want you to tell me, Thomasine, whither you were running? Were you going to Mrs. Saltren?”

“Mrs. Saltren!” scoffed the girl. “She is nothing. Marianne Saltren, the daughter of the canting old cheat, and widow of a mining captain. I won’t be servant to her. Not I.”

“Whither were you going, then?”

Thomasine was silent.

Arminell walked at her side; she had let go the girl’s hand.

“I ran after you,” said Arminell.

“Was that what made you so hot and out of breath, miss?”

“Yes, I was frightened when I heard that you had gone away.”

“What was there to frighten you? I had not taken any spoons.”

“I never supposed that for a moment. I was alarmed about yourself.”

“I can take care of myself. I am old enough.”

“I am not sure that you can take care of yourself, Thomasine; you and I come from the same place, dear Orleigh, and it is such a pleasure to me to see you, and hear you talk. When I found that you were gone, I thought what shall I do without my dear Tamsine to talk with about the old place I love so much?”

“Why don’t you go back to it, miss, if you like it?” asked the girl.

“Because I cannot. Come closer to me.” Arminell caught the girl’s hand again. “I also ran away. I ran away, as you are running away now. That has brought upon me great sorrow and bitter self-reproach, and I would save you from doing the same thing that I have done, and from the repentance that comes too late.”

“They said at Orleigh, miss, that you were dead.”

“I am dead to Orleigh and all I love there. Why did you come to town with Mrs. Saltren, if you do not care to be with her?”

“Because I wanted to see the world, but I had no intention of remaining with her.”

“Then what did you intend?”

Thomasine shrugged her shoulders. “I wanted to see life, and have some fun, and know what London was like. I don’t want to slave here as I slaved in a farm.”

“You came to town restless and discontented, so did I; and now I would give everything I have to be set back where I was. You came in the same spirit, and I have stopped you on the threshold of a grave disaster, and perhaps saved you from unutterable misery. Thomasine, dear Thomasine, tell me the truth. Were you going to that hotel where some one flattered your vanity and held out to you prospects of idleness? You were leaving hard work and the duties that fell to your lot where God placed you, because impatient of restraint. You had learned the one lesson that is taught in all schools to boys and girls alike – hatred of honest work. Tamsine, you must return with me.”

The girl pouted. Arminell, looking round, saw the curl in her lip.

“I don’t care to be under the Welshes,” said the girl; “nor Marianne Saltren, neither. They ain’t better than me, and why shouldn’t I be as stylish as they?”

“If you resent being with them, be with me. Be my maid. I am not going to remain in Shepherd’s Bush. I intend to take a house somewhere in the country – somewhere where I can be useful, and, Tamsine, find work, hard work that I can do for others. That is what I seek now for myself. Will you come with me? Then we two Orleigh girls will be together, that will be charming.”

Thomasine turned and looked wonderingly at Miss Inglett. We two Orleigh girls! We – the baron’s daughter and the wise woman’s bastard.

“I’d like my frolic first,” said Thomasine.

“After that – I could not receive you,” answered Arminell gravely.

“I don’t see,” said Thomasine, still pouting, but uneasy and undecided, with the colour flying in flakes over her face and showing through the transparent complexion. “I don’t see why we are to be always kept at work, and not be allowed to amuse ourselves. We aren’t young for long.”

“Tamsine,” said Arminell, “poor Arkie Tubb sat by you when your mother’s cottage was being pulled down, and when you thought that she was in danger, and you could not run to her aid yourself, because you had turned your ankle, you sent him. You sent him to his death. The chimney fell and buried him. If he had considered himself he would not have risked his life for your mother. We all honour him for what he did. He never was clever and sharp in life, he failed in everything he undertook, he even failed then, for he did not bring your mother out of the ruin, he was buried in it himself. But he was a hero in his death because he sacrificed himself for others – for you, because he loved you, and for your mother.”

Thomasine said nothing, but her hand twitched in that of Arminell.

“You must be worthy of him, remain worthy of him. Thomasine, if you follow your own self-will and passion for pleasure, people will say it was well that Arkie Tubb died, she was not deserving of him.”

They had reached the head of the Broad Walk, and issued from Kensington Park into Uxbridge Road. The stream of traffic flowed east and west, east to the City, west to Shepherd’s Bush, past them, and they stood watching the two currents. Thomasine withdrew her hand.

Arminell was certain that this was a critical moment in the girl’s heart. She said nothing more. She had said enough, she waited. Thomasine turned her face east, and took a step in that direction with a red flush in her cheek. Then the red flush rose to her brow and deserted her cheek, and she turned back.

Presently she said, “May I take your hand again, miss?”

Arminell readily gave it.

Then Thomasine strode to the west, holding Arminell. She seemed fearful of herself if left to herself, but confident whilst holding the hand of Arminell. The good angel had conquered, and that good angel was the thought of poor, blundering, kindly, stupid Arkie Tubb.

Is ever a life utterly thrown away? It had seemed so when the stones crushed the soul out of that lad. A profitless life had ended unprofitably. But see! Here at the end of Broad Walk, Kensington, that cast-away life was the saving of the girl whom he had loved unprofitably.

CHAPTER L.

A RAZOR TO CUT CABBAGES

An old man told me one day that he had spent fifty years of his life in making a concordance of the Bible – he had never heard of Cruden’s work. The labour of fifty years thrown away! I know another who sank all his savings in publishing a Law Compendium he had compiled, and when it was published sold two copies.

Jingles was going through a heart-breaking experience. He was discovering that all he had acquired in school and university was a disadvantage to him in the position in which he now found himself.

He had been well educated, had been polished and sharpened; but the money spent on his education might as well have been thrown into the sea, and the time devoted to learning have been as profitably given up to billiards.

This would not have been the case had Giles Inglett Saltren been able to enter a learned profession, but as this was out of the question, his education was profitless. He had been qualified to take his place in a social class in which he was no more able to show himself.

One day Jingles had given his razor to a boy to sharpen for him. The lad took it to a grindstone and put an edge to the back. “Please, sir,” said the fellow when reprimanded, “the front was middling sharp, so I thought I’d put an edge to the back.” Jingles remembered this incident now with some bitterness. He had been sharpened on the wrong side for cutting his way. He was a classic scholar, knew his Æschylus and Euripides, and could write elegant Latin verses. He was disciplined in the manners and habits of the upper class. But he knew little of modern languages, and his working out a sum in compound addition left much to be desired.

At first he looked out for such a situation as would suit him, but speedily discovered that what he must find was a situation which he would suit.

A librarianship, a secretaryship, lastly a tutorship, commended themselves to him as situations for which he was qualified; but such situations are few, and the applicants are legion.

The paralytic in the Gospel was always wanting to be let down into Siloam after the troubling of the water, but invariably found that some one else had stepped in whilst he was being carried, or was laboriously dragging himself to the brink. It was so with Jingles. When he did hear of a vacancy that would suit him, and made application for it, it was to find that another had stepped in before him.

He tried for private pupils. He was ready to attend any house and teach during the day. He would prefer that to being again taken into a family as a resident tutor, but he was not even as successful as Nicholas Nickleby. There were no little Miss Kenwigses to be taught.

He had a difficulty about giving references. He could not mention Lady Lamerton, and invite inquiries concerning him of the family at Orleigh Park. At first he was reluctant to apply to his uncle for a testimonial, or for leave to use his name, but when he found that his way was blocked through lack of references, he swallowed his pride and asked the requisite permission of Mr. Welsh. The leave was granted and conduced to nothing.

If pride could have fattened, about this time Jingles ought to have grown plump, he swallowed so much of it; but it was like blackbeetles to a cat – it made him grow lanker.

He spent a good deal of money in advertising in the daily papers, but got no answers. Then he took to answering advertisements, and met with no better success. Then he applied to agents, paid fees, and got no further. It was to the advantage of these go-betweens to put bad men in good posts, and thrust good men into bad posts, to plant square men into round holes, and round men in square holes.

Every change brought an additional fee, and naturally this consideration had its influence on the agents.

There was a whole class of middle schools conducted by speculative men without education themselves, for the sons of tradesmen and farmers, where the teaching given was of the worst description, and the moral supervision was of the most inefficient quality. The ushers in these were Germans, Swiss, and French, men out of pocket and out at elbows, picking up a wretched subsistence, and eating as their daily diet humble pie. The doors of these “Academies for Young Gentlemen” were closed to Saltren because he was an University man and a scholar. He was dangerous, he knew too much, and might expose the hollowness of these swindles.

Convinced at length that there was no hope of his getting any place such as he would like, in which his acquirements would avail, Jingles turned to commercial life. But here also he found that his education stood in the way. He went to Mincing Lane in quest of a clerkship in one of the great tea, rice, sugar, and spice firms; but there an accountant and not a logician was wanted.

Next he visited Mark Lane and sought admission into one of the great corn-factors’ offices. He was too raw for these men; what were wanted in such houses as these in Mark and Mincing Lanes were sharp lads of from seventeen to nineteen, trained at Board Schools, who could reckon rapidly, and were not above being sent messages; lads who would be filed into business shape, who were disciplinable to take a special line, not young men educated already and with their heads stuffed with matter utterly useless for business.

In a state of discouragement Jingles next visited Lloyds. There it was the same. What did he want? To become an underwriter! Well and good, let him deposit five thousand pounds and find a clerk at two hundred, with five per cent, on all transactions, till he had himself thoroughly mastered the system of underwriting. He could not afford this. He must be taken on as clerk. Where? At Lloyds, or at one of the Marine Insurance offices that has its base at Lloyds. What did he know of the work? The clerk has to go round with policies to be initialed, and when the books return to the office after four o’clock, he has to make them up. What did he understand about the value of cargoes and the risks run? There was no place for him in a Marine Insurance. Some one recommended him to try stockbroking.

Like a greenhorn, as he was, Jingles made at once for the Exchange, and passing the porters, entered the House. The vast space was crowded. The din bewildered him. He heard names shouted from the telegraph offices, the call of porters, the voices of the stock-jobbers raised in dispute or argument. All at once an exclamation, “Seventeen hundred.”1 Then ensued a gravitation towards himself, and in a moment his hat was knocked over his eyes, then he was thrust, elbowed, jostled from side to side.

When he recovered his sight, his hat was snatched from his hand and flung across the House. Next, his umbrella was wrenched from him, and with it he was struck over the back.

“You have no right in here, sir,” said a porter.

“Don’t mind him,” shouted a dozen around. “We are heartily glad to make your acquaintance.”

The horseplay was resumed, and as the young man’s blood rose, and he resented the treatment, and showed fight, he was still more roughly handled, and finally found himself kicked and hustled out of the Exchange.

Giles Saltren stood on the step without, minus a hat and umbrella, and with his coat split down the back – his best coat put on to produce a good impression on employers – stood dazed and humbled, an object of derision to match-boys and flower-girls who danced about him, with words and antics of mockery.

Presently an old white-haired stockbroker, who came out of the Exchange, noticed him, and stopped and spoke to him, and bade him not be angry. What had occurred was due to his having intruded where he had no right to be. Jingles answered that he had gone there because he was in quest of employment, whereupon he was told he might just as well have jumped into the Thames because he desired engagement on a penny steamer.

“Young gentleman,” said the broker, “it is of no use your looking for employment in our line of business. We have a Clerks’ Provident Fund, to which every clerk out of employ subscribes; and if a broker wants a man at forty, sixty, a hundred, two hundred pounds, he applies to the secretary of the Provident Fund, who furnishes him with the man he wants out of the number of those then disengaged. You have no experience, or you would not have ventured into the House. If I want an errand boy, I take on the son of a clerk. You have, I fear, no connexions in the line to speak a word for you! You have been to the University, do you say?”

The broker whistled.

“My good sir, I do not recommend you to waste time in applying at stockbrokers’ offices; you are likely to make acquaintance with the outside only of their office doors. There is more chance for the son of a bed-maker or a chimney-sweep than for you.”

Giles Saltren next sought admission into a bank, but found that this was a business even more close than that of stock-jobbing. The banking business was like the sleeping Brynhild, surrounded by a waberlohe, a wall of flame; and he was no Siegfried to spur his horse through the ring of fire.

Having discovered how futile were his attempts to enter a bank, he turned to the docks, in hopes of getting a situation in a shipping-office, only there also to meet with rebuff.

Then he saw an advertisement from a West-End shop-keeper, one of those giants of trade, who has an universal store. There was a vacancy in the stocking department for a young man. Applicants were to appear personally at a fixed hour on Friday next.

Giles Inglett hesitated before he could resolve to offer himself as a counter-jumper, and acquire the “What can we serve you next with, ma’am?” To descend to the counter from the Oxford schools was a great descent; but Jingles was like a vessel in stress of weather, throwing overboard all her lading. Away must go his Greek, his Latin, his logic, his position as an University scholar, that of a gentleman, his self-esteem, certainly, his self-respect to some extent, his ambition altogether.

But why not? He was not born to be a gentleman; it was by a happy accident that he had been given an education that furnished him with most accomplishments which adorn a man of birth and standing. He must remember that he was not entitled by his parentage to anything above a shopman’s place, and must gulp down this junk of pride.

On the appointed day Saltren went to Westbourne Grove, and found that he was but one of between three or four hundred young men, applicants for the vacancy behind the stocking counter. His appearance, delicate and refined, the diffidence with which he spoke, were against him, and he found himself at once and decisively rejected, and a vulgar young fellow at his side, full of self-conceit, was chosen instead.

Saltren made application in other offices, but always without success: his ignorance of shorthand was against him. In the offices of solicitors it is indispensable that shorthand be practised by the clerks. It facilitates and expedites the dictation of letters.

So also, had he been a proficient in shorthand, he might have obtained work as a reporter at meetings. But to his grief he discovered that all the education he had received which tended to broaden the mind was valueless, that only was profitable which contracted the intellect. Saltren, moreover, was speedily given to understand that unless he went in search of a situation with gold in his hand, he could get nothing. With capital, his intellectual culture would be graciously overlooked and excused. His university education was such a drawback, that it could only be forgiven if he put money into the concern where he proposed to enter.

Saltren had come to the end of his own resources, and he saw that without capital he could get admission nowhere. He could not obtain a clerkship in any kind of business; the sole chance of entering a commercial life was to become a partner in one.

There was abundance of advertisements for partners in the daily papers, but nearly all the businesses, when examined, proved unsatisfactory, and the risk of losing all too great. Giles Saltren had, indeed, no capital of his own; but he resolved, should he see a chance of making an investment that was safe, and one which would give him work in a partnership, to propose to his mother that she should in this manner dispose of the purchase-money for Chillacot. She would derive from it an annual sum as interest, and have the satisfaction as well of knowing that she had found employment for her son.

At last he found what he sought, and sanguine as to the results, he came to his mother’s lodgings to make the proposal to her.