Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet Part 24

I looked up at him fiercely enough, but the placid smile which had returned to his face disarmed me.

"Your cla.s.s," he went on, "blind yourselves and our cla.s.s as much by wholesale denunciations of us, as we, alas! who should know better, do by wholesale denunciations of you. As you grow older, you will learn that there are exceptions to every rule."

"And yet the exception proves the rule."

"Most painfully true, sir. But that argument is two-edged. For instance, am I to consider it the exception or the rule, when I am told that you, a journeyman tailor, are able to correct these proofs for me?"

"Nearer the rule, I think, than you yet fancy."

"You speak out boldly and well; but how can you judge what I may please to fancy? At all events, I will make trial of you. There are the proofs. Bring them to me by four o'clock this afternoon, and if they are well done, I will pay you more than I should do to the average hack-writer, for you will deserve more."

I took the proofs; he turned to go, and by a side-look at George beckoned him out of the room. I heard a whispering in the pa.s.sage; and I do not deny that my heart beat high with new hopes, as I caught unwillingly the words--

"Such a forehead!--such an eye!--such a contour of feature as that!--Locule mi--that boy ought not to be mending trousers."

My cousin returned, half laughing, half angry.

"Alton, you fool, why did you let out that you were a snip?"

"I am not ashamed of my trade."

"I am, then. However, you've done with it now; and if you can't come the gentleman, you may as well come the rising genius. The self-educated dodge pays well just now; and after all, you've hooked his lordship--thank me for that. But you'll never hold him, you impudent dog, if you pull so hard on him"--He went on, putting his hands into his coat-tail pockets, and sticking himself in front of the fire, like the Delphic Pythoness upon the sacred tripod, in hopes, I suppose, of some oracular afflatus--"You will never hold him, I say, if you pull so hard on him. You ought to 'My lord'

him for months yet, at least. You know, my good fellow, you must take every possible care to pick up what good breeding you can, if I take the trouble to put you in the way of good society, and tell you where my private birds'-nests are, like the green schoolboy some poet or other talks of."

"He is no lord of mine," I answered, "in any sense of the word, and therefore I shall not call him so."

"Upon my honour! here is a young gentleman who intends to rise in the world, and then commences by trying to walk through the first post he meets! Noodle! can't you do like me, and get out of the carts' way when they come by? If you intend to go ahead, you must just dodge in and out like a dog at a fair. 'She stoops to conquer' is my motto, and a precious good one too."

"I have no wish to conquer Lord Lynedale, and so I shall not stoop to him."

"I have, then; and to very good purpose, too. I am his whetstone, for polishing up that cla.s.sical wit of his on, till he carries it into Parliament to astonish the country squires. He fancies himself a second Goethe, I hav'n't forgot his. .h.i.tting at me, before a large supper party, with a certain epigram of that old turkeyc.o.c.k's about the whale having his unmentionable parasite--and the great man likewise. Whale, indeed! I bide my time, Alton, my boy--I bide my time; and then let your grand aristocrat look out! If he does not find the supposed whale-unmentionable a good stout holding harpoon, with a tough line to it, and a long one, it's a pity, Alton my boy!"

And he burst into a coa.r.s.e laugh, tossed himself down on the sofa, and re-lighted his meerschaum.

"He seemed to me," I answered, "to have a peculiar courtesy and liberality of mind towards those below him in rank."

"Oh! he had, had he? Now, I'll just put you up to a dodge. He intends to come the Mirabeau--fancies his mantle has fallen on him--prays before the fellow's bust, I believe, if one knew the truth, for a double portion of his spirit; and therefore it is a part of his game to ingratiate himself with all pot-boy-dom, while at heart he is as proud, exclusive an aristocrat, as ever wore n.o.bleman's hat. At all events, you may get something out of him, if you play your cards well--or, rather, help me to play mine; for I consider him as my property, and you only as my aide-de-camp."

"I shall play no one's cards," I answered, sulkily. "I am doing work fairly, and shall be fairly paid for it, and keep my own independence."

"Independence--hey-day! Have you forgotten that, after all, you are my--guest, to call it by the mildest term?"

"Do you upbraid me with that?" I said, starting up. "Do you expect me to live on your charity, on condition of doing your dirty work? You do not know me, sir. I leave your roof this instant!"

"You do not!" answered he, laughing loudly, as he sprang over the sofa, and set his back against the door. "Come, come, you Will-o'-the-Wisp, as full of flights, and fancies, and vagaries, as a sick old maid! can't you see which side your bread is b.u.t.tered? Sit down, I say! Don't you know that I'm as good-natured a fellow as ever lived, although I do parade a little Gil Bias morality now and then, just for fun's sake? Do you think I should be so open with it, if I meant anything very diabolic? There--sit down, and don't go into King Cambyses' vein, or Queen Hecuba's tears either, which you seem inclined to do."

"I know you have been very generous to me," I said, penitently; "but a kindness becomes none when you are upbraided with it."

"So say the copybooks--I deny it. At all events, I'll say no more; and you shall sit down there, and write as still as a mouse till two, while I tackle this never-to-be-enough-by-unhappy-third-years'-men-execrated Griffin's Optics."

At four that afternoon, I knocked, proofs in hand, at the door of Lord Lynedale's rooms in the King's Parade. The door was opened by a little elderly groom, grey-coated, grey-gaitered, grey-haired, grey-visaged. He had the look of a respectable old family retainer, and his exquisitely neat groom's dress gave him a sort of interest in my eyes. Cla.s.s costumes, relics though they are of feudalism, carry a charm with them. They are symbolic, definitive; they bestow a personality on the wearer, which satisfies the mind, by enabling it instantly to cla.s.sify him, to connect him with a thousand stories and a.s.sociations; and to my young mind, the wiry, shrewd, honest, grim old serving-man seemed the incarnation of all the wonders of Newmarket, and the hunting-kennel, and the steeple-chase, of which I had read, with alternate admiration and contempt, in the newspapers. He ushered me in with a good breeding which surprised me;--without insolence to me, or servility to his master; both of which I had been taught to expect.

Lord Lynedale bade me very courteously sit down while he examined the proofs. I looked round the low-wainscoted apartment, with its narrow mullioned windows, in extreme curiosity. What a real n.o.bleman's abode could be like, was naturally worth examining, to one who had, all his life, heard of the aristocracy as of some mythic t.i.tans--whether fiends or G.o.ds, being yet a doubtful point--altogether enshrined on "cloudy Olympus," invisible to mortal ken. The shelves were gay with morocco, Russia leather, and gilding--not much used, as I thought, till my eye caught one of the gorgeously-bound volumes lying on the table in a loose cover of polished leather--a refinement of which poor I should never have dreamt. The walls were covered with prints, which soon turned my eyes from everything else, to range delighted over Landseers, Turners, Roberts's Eastern sketches, the ancient Italian masters; and I recognized, with a sort of friendly affection, an old print of my favourite St. Sebastian, in the Dulwich Gallery. It brought back to my mind a thousand dreams, and a thousand sorrows. Would those dreams be ever realized? Might this new acquaintance possibly open some pathway towards their fulfilment?--some vista towards the attainment of a station where they would, at least, be less chimerical?

And at that thought, my heart beat loud with hope. The room was choked up with chairs and tables, of all sorts of strange shapes and problematical uses. The floor was strewed with skins of bear, deer, and seal. In a corner lay hunting-whips, and fishing-rods, foils, boxing-gloves, and gun-cases; while over the chimney-piece, an array of rich Turkish pipes, all amber and enamel, contrasted curiously with quaint old swords and daggers--bronze cla.s.sic casts, upon Gothic oak brackets, and fantastic sc.r.a.ps of continental carving. On the centre table, too, reigned the same rich profusion, or if you will, confusion--MSS., "Notes in Egypt," "Goethe's Walverwandschaften," Murray's Hand-books, and "Plato's Republic." What was there not there? And I chuckled inwardly, to see how _Bell's Life in London_ and the _Ecclesiologist_ had, between them, got down "McCulloch on Taxation," and were sitting, arm-in-arm, triumphantly astride of him.

Everything in the room, even to the fragrant flowers in a German gla.s.s, spoke of a travelled and cultivated luxury--manifold tastes and powers of self-enjoyment and self-improvement, which, Heaven forgive me if I envied, as I looked upon them. If I, now, had had one-twentieth part of those books, prints, that experience of life, not to mention that physical strength and beauty, which stood towering there before the fire--so simple; so utterly unconscious of the innate n.o.bleness and grace which shone out from every motion of those stately limbs and features--all the delicacy which blood can give, combined, as one does sometimes see, with the broad strength of the proletarian--so different from poor me!--and so different, too, as I recollected with perhaps a savage pleasure, from the miserable, stunted specimens of over-bred imbecility whom I had often pa.s.sed in London! A strange question that of birth! and one in which the philosopher, in spite of himself, must come to democratic conclusions. For, after all, the physical and intellectual superiority of the high-born is only preserved, as it was in the old Norman times, by the continual practical abnegation of the very caste-lie on which they pride themselves--by continual renovation of their race, by intermarriage with the ranks below them. The blood of Odin flowed in the veins of Norman William; true--and so did the tanner's of Falaise!

At last he looked up and spoke courteously--

"I'm afraid I have kept you long; but now, here is for your corrections, which are capital. I have really to thank you for a lesson in writing English." And he put a sovereign into my hand.

"I am very sorry," said I, "but I have no change."

"Never mind that. Your work is well worth the money."

"But," I said, "you agreed with me for five shillings a sheet, and--I do not wish to be rude, but I cannot accept your kindness. We working men make a rule of abiding by our wages, and taking nothing which looks like--"

"Well, well--and a very good rule it is. I suppose, then, I must find out some way for you to earn more. Good afternoon." And he motioned me out of the room, followed me down stairs, and turned off towards the College Gardens.

I wandered up and down, feeding my greedy eyes, till I found myself again upon the bridge where I had stood that morning, gazing with admiration and astonishment at a scene which I have often expected to see painted or described, and which, nevertheless, in spite of its unique magnificence, seems strangely overlooked by those who cater for the public taste, with pen and pencil. The vista of bridges, one after another spanning the stream; the long line of great monastic palaces, all unlike, and yet all in harmony, sloping down to the stream, with their trim lawns and ivied walls, their towers and b.u.t.tresses; and opposite them, the range of rich gardens and n.o.ble timber-trees, dimly seen through which, at the end of the gorgeous river avenue, towered the lofty buildings of St. John's. The whole scene, under the glow of a rich May afternoon, seemed to me a fragment out of the "Arabian Nights" or Spencer's "Fairy Queen." I leaned upon the parapet, and gazed, and gazed, so absorbed in wonder and enjoyment, that I was quite unconscious, for some time, that Lord Lynedale was standing by my side, engaged in the same employment. He was not alone. Hanging on his arm was a lady, whose face, it seemed to me, I ought to know. It certainly was one not to be easily forgotten. She was beautiful, but with the face and figure rather of a Juno than a Venus--dark, imperious, restless--the lips almost too firmly set, the brow almost too ma.s.sive and projecting--a queen, rather to be feared than loved--but a queen still, as truly royal as the man into whose face she was looking up with eager admiration and delight, as he pointed out to her eloquently the several beauties of the landscape.

Her dress was as plain as that of any Quaker; but the grace of its arrangement, of every line and fold, was enough, without the help of the heavy gold bracelet on her wrist, to proclaim her a fine lady; by which term, I wish to express the result of that perfect education in taste and manner, down to every gesture, which Heaven forbid that I, professing to be a poet, should undervalue. It is beautiful; and therefore I welcome it, in the name of the Author of all beauty. I value it so highly, that I would fain see it extend, not merely from Belgravia to the tradesman's villa, but thence, as I believe it one day will, to the labourer's hovel, and the needlewoman's garret.

Half in bashfulness, half in the pride which shrinks from anything like intrusion, I was moving away; but the n.o.bleman, recognising me with a smile and a nod, made some observation on the beauty of the scene before us.

Before I could answer, however, I saw that his companion's eyes were fixed intently on my face.

"Is this," she said to Lord Lynedale, "the young person of whom you were speaking to me just now? I fancy that I recollect him, though, I dare say, he has forgotten me."

If I had forgotten the face, that voice, so peculiarly rich, deep, and marked in its p.r.o.nunciation of every syllable, recalled her instantly to my mind. It was the dark lady of the Dulwich Gallery!

"I met you, I think," I said, "at the picture gallery at Dulwich, and you were kind enough, and--and some persons who were with you, to talk to me about a picture there."

"Yes; Guido's St. Sebastian. You seemed fond of reading then. I am glad to see you at college."

I explained that I was not at college. That led to fresh gentle questions on her part, till I had given her all the leading points of my history.

There was nothing in it of which I ought to have been ashamed.

She seemed to become more and more interested in my story, and her companion also.

"And have you tried to write? I recollect my uncle advising you to try a poem on St. Sebastian. It was spoken, perhaps, in jest; but it will not, I hope, have been labour lost, if you have taken it in earnest."

"Yes--I have written on that and on other subjects, during the last few years."

"Then, you must let us see them, if you have them with you. I think my uncle, Arthur, might like to look over them; and if they were fit for publication, he might be able to do something towards it."

"At all events," said Lord Lynedale, "a self-educated author is always interesting. Bring any of your poems, that you have with you, to the Eagle this afternoon, and leave them there for Dean Winnstay; and to-morrow morning, if you have nothing better to do, call there between ten and eleven o'clock."

He wrote me down the dean's address, and nodding a civil good morning, turned away with his queenly companion, while I stood gazing after him, wondering whether all n.o.blemen and high-born ladies were like them in person and in spirit--a question which, in spite of many n.o.ble exceptions, some of them well known and appreciated by the working men, I am afraid must be answered in the negative.