5. FROM OCTOBER THE NINETEENTH TO JULY THE NINTH
1422 Words
5. FROM OCTOBER THE NINETEENTH TO JULY
THE NINTHThus Ambrose Graye's good intentions with regard to the
reintegration of his property had scarcely taken tangible form when
his sudden death put them for ever out of his power.
Heavy bills, showing the extent of his obligations, tumbled in
immediately upon the heels of the funeral from quarters previously
unheard and unthought of. Thus pressed, a bill was filed in
Chancery to have the assets, such as they were, administered by the
Court.
'What will become of us now?' thought Owen continually.
There is in us an unquenchable expectation, which at the
gloomiest time persists in inferring that because we
areourselves, there must be a special future in store for
us, though our nature and antecedents to the remotest particular
have been common to thousands. Thus to Cytherea and Owen Graye the
question how their lives would end seemed the deepest of possible
enigmas. To others who knew their position equally well with
themselves the question was the easiest that could be asked—'Like
those of other people similarly circumstanced.'
Then Owen held a consultation with his sister to come to some
decision on their future course, and a month was passed in waiting
for answers to letters, and in the examination of schemes more or
less futile. Sudden hopes that were rainbows to the sight proved
but mists to the touch. In the meantime, unpleasant remarks,
disguise them as some well-meaning people might, were floating
around them every day. The undoubted truth, that they were the
children of a dreamer who let slip away every farthing of his money
and ran into debt with his neighbours—that the daughter had been
brought up to no profession—that the son who had, had made no
progress in it, and might come to the dogs—could not from the
nature of things be wrapped up in silence in order that it might
not hurt their feelings; and as a matter of fact, it greeted their
ears in some form or other wherever they went. Their few
acquaintances passed them hurriedly. Ancient pot-wallopers, and
thriving shopkeepers, in their intervals of leisure, stood at their
shop-doors—their toes hanging over the edge of the step, and their
obese waists hanging over their toes—and in discourses with friends
on the pavement, formulated the course of the improvident, and
reduced the children's prospects to a shadow-like attenuation. The
sons of these men (who wore breastpins of a sarcastic kind, and
smoked humorous pipes) stared at Cytherea with a stare unmitigated
by any of the respect that had formerly softened it.
Now it is a noticeable fact that we do not much mind what men
think of us, or what humiliating secret they discover of our means,
parentage, or object, provided that each thinks and acts thereupon
in isolation. It is the exchange of ideas about us that we dread
most; and the possession by a hundred acquaintances, severally
insulated, of the knowledge of our skeleton-closet's whereabouts,
is not so distressing to the nerves as a chat over it by a party of
half-a-dozen—exclusive depositaries though these may be.
Perhaps, though Hocbridge watched and whispered, its animus
would have been little more than a trifle to persons in thriving
circumstances. But unfortunately, poverty, whilst it is new, and
before the skin has had time to thicken, makes people susceptible
inversely to their opportunities for shielding themselves. In Owen
was found, in place of his father's impressibility, a larger share
of his father's pride, and a squareness of idea which, if coupled
with a little more blindness, would have amounted to positive
prejudice. To him humanity, so far as he had thought of it at all,
was rather divided into distinct classes than blended from extreme
to extreme. Hence by a sequence of ideas which might be traced if
it were worth while, he either detested or respected opinion, and
instinctively sought to escape a cold shade that mere sensitiveness
would have endured. He could have submitted to separation,
sickness, exile, drudgery, hunger and thirst, with stoical
indifference, but superciliousness was too incisive.
After living on for nine months in attempts to make an income as
his father's successor in the profession—attempts which were
utterly fruitless by reason of his inexperience—Graye came to a
simple and sweeping resolution. They would privately leave that
part of England, drop from the sight of acquaintances, gossips,
harsh critics, and bitter creditors of whose misfortune he was not
the cause, and escape the position which galled him by the only
road their great poverty left open to them—that of his obtaining
some employment in a distant place by following his profession as a
humble under-draughtsman.
He thought over his capabilities with the sensations of a
soldier grinding his sword at the opening of a campaign. What with
lack of employment, owing to the decrease of his late father's
practice, and the absence of direct and uncompromising pressure
towards monetary results from a pupil's labour (which seems to be
always the case when a professional man's pupil is also his son),
Owen's progress in the art and science of architecture had been
very insignificant indeed. Though anything but an idle young man,
he had hardly reached the age at which industrious men who lack an
external whip to send them on in the world, are induced by their
own common sense to whip on themselves. Hence his knowledge of
plans, elevations, sections, and specifications, was not greater at
the end of two years of probation than might easily have been
acquired in six months by a youth of average ability—himself, for
instance—amid a bustling London practice.
But at any rate he could make himself handy to one of the
profession—some man in a remote town—and there fulfil his
indentures. A tangible inducement lay in this direction of survey.
He had a slight conception of such a man—a Mr. Gradfield—who was in
practice in Budmouth Regis, a seaport town and watering-place in
the south of England.
After some doubts, Graye ventured to write to this gentleman,
asking the necessary question, shortly alluding to his father's
death, and stating that his term of apprenticeship had only half
expired. He would be glad to complete his articles at a very low
salary for the whole remaining two years, provided p*****t could
begin at once.
The answer from Mr. Gradfield stated that he was not in want of
a pupil who would serve the remainder of his time on the terms Mr.
Graye mentioned. But he would just add one remark. He chanced to be
in want of some young man in his office—for a short time only,
probably about two months—to trace drawings, and attend to other
subsidiary work of the kind. If Mr. Graye did not object to occupy
such an inferior position as these duties would entail, and to
accept weekly wages which to one with his expectations would be
considered merely nominal, the post would give him an opportunity
for learning a few more details of the profession.
'It is a beginning, and, above all, an abiding-place, away from
the shadow of the cloud which hangs over us here—I will go,' said
Owen.
Cytherea's plan for her future, an intensely simple one, owing
to the even greater narrowness of her resources, was already marked
out. One advantage had accrued to her through her mother's
possession of a fair share of personal property, and perhaps only
one. She had been carefully educated. Upon this consideration her
plan was based. She was to take up her abode in her brother's
lodging at Budmouth, when she would immediately advertise for a
situation as governess, having obtained the consent of a lawyer at
Aldbrickham who was winding up her father's affairs, and who knew
the history of her position, to allow himself to be referred to in
the matter of her past life and respectability.
Early one morning they departed from their native town, leaving
behind them scarcely a trace of their footsteps.
Then the town pitied their want of wisdom in taking such a step.
'Rashness; they would have made a better income in Hocbridge, where
they are known! There is no doubt that they would.'
But what is Wisdom really? A steady handling of any means to
bring about any end necessary to happiness.
Yet whether one's end be the usual end—a wealthy position in
life—or no, the name of wisdom is seldom applied but to the means
to that usual end.
Chapter 2
THE EVENTS OF A FORTNIGHT
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