Walter Besant
All Sorts and Conditions of Men: An Impossible Story
CHAPTER XXXIII.
MR. BUNKER'S LETTER
Two days after this Angela received a wonderful letter. It was addressed to Miss Messenger, and was signed Benjamin Bunker. It ran as follows:
"Honored Miss: As an old and humble friend of your late lamented grandfather, whose loss I can never recover from, nor has it yet been made up to me in any way" – Angela laughed – "I venture to address the following lines in secrecy and confidence, knowing that what ought not to be concealed should be told in the proper quarter, which is you, miss, and none other.
"Everybody in these parts knows me; everybody knows Bunker, your grandfather's right-hand man; wherefore what I write is with no other design than to warn you and to put you on your guard against the deceitful, and such as would abuse your confidingness, being but young – ay, yes, and therefore ignorant of dodges, and easy to come round.
"You have been come round, and that in such a shameful way that I cannot bear myself any longer, and must take the liberty of telling you so, being an old and confidential adviser. Your grandfather used to say that even the brewery wouldn't be where it is now if it hadn't been for me, not to speak of the house property, which is now a profitable investment, with rents regular and respectable tenants, whereas before I took it in hand the houses were out of repair, the rents backward, and the tenants too often such as would bring discredit on any estate. I therefore beg to warn you against two persons – young, I am sorry to say, which makes it worse, because it is only the old who should be thus depraved – whom you have benefited and they are unworthy of it.
"One of them is a certain Miss Kennedy, a dressmaker, at least she says so. The other is – I write this with a blush of indignant shame – my own nephew, whose name is Harry Goslett."
"Bunker!" murmured Angela. "Is this fair to your own tenant and your own nephew?"
"As regards my nephew, you have never inquired about him, and it was out of your kindness and a desire to mark your sense of me, that you gave him a berth in the brewery. That young man, miss, who calls himself a cabinet-maker and doesn't seem to know that a joiner is one thing and a cabinet-maker another, now does the joinery for the brewery, and makes, I am told, as much as two pounds a week, being a handy chap. If you asked me first, I should have told you that he is a lazy, indolent, free and easy, disrespectful, dangerous young man. He has been no one knows where; no one knows where he has worked, except that he talks about America; he looks like a betting man; I believe he drinks of a night; he has been living like a gentleman, doing no work, and I believe, though up to the present I haven't found out for certain, that he has been in trouble and knows what is a convict's feelings when the key is turned. Because he is such a disgrace to the family, for his mother was a Coppin and came of a respectable Whitechapel stock, though not equal to the Bunkers or the Messengers, I went to him and offered him five-and-twenty pounds out of my slender stock to go away and never come back any more to disgrace us. Five-and-twenty pounds I would have given to save Messenger's brewery from such a villain."
"Bunker, Bunker!" murmured Angela again.
"But he wouldn't take the money. You thought to do me a good turn and you done yourself a bad one. I don't know what mischief he has already done in the brewery, and perhaps he is watched; if so it may not yet be too late. Send him about his business. Make him go. You can then consider some other way of making it up to me for all that work for your grandfather whereof you now sweetly reap the benefit.
"The other case, miss, is that of the young woman, Kennedy by name, the dressmaker."
"What of her, Bunker?" asked Angela.
"I hear that you are givin' her your custom, not knowing, maybe, the kind of woman she is nor the mischief she's about. She's got a house of mine on false pretences."
"Really, Bunker," said Angela, "you are too bad."
"Otherwise I wouldn't let her have it, and at the end of the year out she goes. She has persuaded a lot of foolish girls, once contented with their lowly lot and thankful for their wages and their work, nor inclined to grumble when hours were long and work had to be done. She has promised them the profits, and meantime she feeds them up so that their eyes swell out with fatness. She gives them short hours, and sends them out into the garden to play games. Games, if you please, and short hours for such as them. In the evening it's worse, for then they play and sing and dance, having young men to caper about with them, and you can hear them half a mile up the Mile End Road, so that it is a scandal to Stepney Green, once respectable, and the police will probably interfere. Where she came from, who she was, how she got her money, we don't know. Some say one thing, some say another; whatever they say it's a bad way. The worst is that when she smashes, as she must, because no ladies who respect virtue and humble-mindedness with contentment will employ her, that the other dressmakers and shops will have nothing to do with her girls, so that what will happen to them no one can tell.
"I thought it right, miss, to give you this information, because it is certain that if you withdraw your support from these two undeserving people, they must go away, which as a respectable Stepney man, I unite in wishing may happen before long, when the girls shall go on again as before and leave off dancing and singing to the rich, and be humble and contented with the trust to which they were born.
"And as regards the kindness you were meditating toward me, miss, I think that I may say that none of my nephews – one of whom is a Radical, and another a captain in the Salvation Army – deserves to receive any benefits at your hands, the least of all that villain who works in the brewery. Wherefore, it may take the form of something for myself. And it is not for me to tell you, miss, how much that something ought to be for a man in years, of respectable station, and once the confidential friend of your grandfather, and prevented thereby from saving as much as he had otherwise a right to expect.
"I remain, miss, your humble servant,
"Benjamin Bunker."
"This," said Angela, "is a very impudent letter. How shall we bring him to book for it?"
When she learned, as she speedily did, the great mystery about the houses and the Coppin property, she began to understand the letter, the contents of which she kept to herself for the present. This was perhaps wise, for the theory implied rather than stated in the letter, that both should be ordered to go, for if one only was turned out of work both would stay. This theory made her smile and blush, and pleased her, insomuch that she was not so angry as she might otherwise have been, and should have been, with the crafty double-dealer who wrote the letter.
It happened that Mr. Bunker had business on Stepney Green that morning, while Angela was reading the letter. She saw him from the window, and could not resist the temptation of inviting him to step in. He came, not in the least abashed, and with no tell-tale signal of confusion in his rosy cheeks.
"Come in, Mr. Bunker," said Angela. "Come in; I want five minutes' talk with you. This way, please, where we can be alone."
She led him into the refectory, because Daniel Fagg was in the drawing room.
"I have been thinking, Mr. Bunker," she said, "how very, very fortunate I was to fall into such hands as yours, when I came to Stepney."
"You were, miss, you were. That was a fall, as one may say, which meant a rise."
"I am sure it did, Mr. Bunker. You do not often come to see us, but I hope you approve of our plans."
"As for that," he replied, "it isn't my business. People come to me and I put them in the way. How they run in the way is not my business to inquire. As for you and your girls, now, if you make the concern go, you may thank me for it. If you don't, why, it isn't my fault."
"Very well put, indeed, Mr. Bunker. In six months the first year, for which I paid the rent, will come to an end."
"It will."
"We shall then have to consider a fresh agreement. I was thinking, Mr. Bunker, that, seeing how good a man you are, and how generous, you would like to make your rent, like the wages of the girls, depend upon the profits of the business."
"What?" he asked.
Angela repeated her proposition.
He rose, buttoned his coat, and put on his hat.
"Rent depend on profits? Is the girl mad? Rent comes first and before anything else. Rent is even before taxes; and as for rates – but you're mad. My rent depend on profits! Rent, miss, is sacred. Remember that."
"Oh!" said Angela.
"And what is more," he added, "people who don't pay up get sold up. It's a Christian duty to sell 'em up. I couldn't let off my own nephews."
"As for one of them, you would like to sell him up, would you not, Mr. Bunker?"
"I would," he replied truthfully. "I should like to see him out of the place. You know what I told you when you came. Have nothing to do, I said, with that chap. Keep him at arm's length, for he is a bad lot. Now you see what he has brought you to. Singin', dancin', playin', laughin', every night; respectable ladies driven away from your shop; many actually kept out of the place; expenses doubled; all through him. What's more – bankruptcy ahead! Don't I know that not a lady in Stepney or Mile End comes here? Don't I know that you depend upon your West End connection? When that goes, where are you? And all for the sake of that pink and white chap! Well, when one goes, the other'll go too, I suppose. Rent out of profits, indeed! No, no, Miss; it'll do you good to learn a little business, even if you do get sold up."
"Thank you, Mr. Bunker. Do you know, I do not think you will ever have the pleasure of selling me up?"
She laughed so merrily that he felt he hated her quite as much as he hated his nephew. Why, six months before, no one laughed in Stepney at all; and to think that any one should laugh at him, would have been an impossible dream.
"You laugh," he said gravely, "and yet you are on the brink of ruin. Where's your character? Wrapped up with the character of that young man. Where's your business! Drove away – by him. You laugh. Ah! I'm sorry for you, miss, because I thought at one time you were a plain-spoken, honest sort of young woman; if I'd ha' known that you meant to use my house – mine, the friend of all the respectable tradesmen – for such wicked fads as now disgrace it, I'd never ha' taken you for a tenant."
"Oh yes, you would, Mr. Bunker." She laughed again, but not merrily this time. "Oh yes – you would. You forget the fittings and the furniture, the rent paid in advance, and the half-crown an hour for advice. Is there anything, I should like to know, that you would not do for half a crown an hour?"
He made no reply.
"Why, again, do you hate your nephew? What injury have you done him that you should bear him such ill will?"
This, which was not altogether a shot in the dark, went straight to Mr. Bunker's heart. He said nothing, but put on his hat and rushed out. Clearly these two, between them, would drive him mad.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
PROOFS IN PRINT
"It is quite finished now," said Daniel Fagg, blotting the last page.
When he began to live with the dressmakers, Angela, desiring to find him some employment, had suggested that he should rewrite the whole of his book, and redraw the illustrations. It was not a large book, even though it was stuffed and padded with readings of inscriptions and tablets. An ordinary writer would have made a fair copy in a fortnight. But so careful an author as Daniel, so anxious to present his work perfect and unassailable, and so slow in the mere mechanical art of writing, wanted much more than a fortnight. His handwriting, like his Hebrew, had been acquired comparatively late in life; it was therefore rather ponderous, and he had never learned the art of writing half a word and leaving the other half to be guessed. Then there were the Hebrew words, which took a great deal of time to get right; and the equilateral triangles, which also caused a considerable amount of trouble. So that it was a good six weeks before Daniel was ready with a fair copy of his manuscript. He was almost as happy in making this transcript as he had been with the original document; perhaps more so, because he was now able to consider his great discovery as a whole, to regard it as an architect may regard his finished work, and to touch up, ornament, and improve his translations.
"It is quite complete," he repeated, laying the last page in its place and tapping the roll affectionately. "Here you will find the full account of the two tables of stone and a translation of their contents, with notes. What will they say to that, I wonder?"
"But how," asked Angela – "how did the tables of stone get to the British Museum?"
Mr. Fagg considered his reply for a while.
"There are two ways," he said, "and I don't know which is the right one. For either they were brought here when we, the descendants of Ephraim, as everybody knows, landed in England, or else they were brought here by Phœnician traders after the Captivity. However, there they are, as anybody may see with the help of my discovery. As for the scholars, how can they see anything? Wilful ignorance, miss, is their sin: pride and wilful ignorance. You're ignorant because you are a woman, and it is your nature too. But not to love darkness!"
"No, Mr. Fagg. I lament my ignorance."
"Then there's the story of David and Jonathan, and the history of Jezebel and her great wickedness, and the life and death of King Jehoshaphat, and a great deal more. Now read for the first time from the arrow-headed character – so called – by Daniel Fagg, self-taught scholar, once shoemaker in the colony of Victoria, discoverer of the Primitive Alphabet and the Universal Language."
"That is, indeed, a glorious thing to be able to say, Mr. Fagg."
"But now it is written, what next?"
"You mean how can you get it printed?"
"Of course – that's what I mean," he replied almost angrily. "There's the book and no one will look at it. Haven't I tried all the publishers? What else should I mean?"
The old disappointment, kept under and forgotten during the excitement of re-writing the book, was making itself felt again. How much further forward was he – the work had been finished long before. All he had done the last six weeks was to write it afresh.
"I've only been wasting my time here," he said querulously. "I ought to have been up and about. I might have gone to Oxford, where, I am told, there are young men who would, perhaps, give me a hearing. Or, there's Cambridge – where they have never heard of my discovery. You've made me waste six weeks and more."
Angela forbore to ask him how he would have lived during those six weeks. She replied softly: "Nay, Mr. Fagg; not wasted the time. You were overworked; you wanted rest. Besides, I think, we may find a plan to get this book published."
"What plan – how?"
"If you would trust the manuscript to my hands. Yes, I know well how precious it is, and what a dreadful thing it would be to lose it. But you have a copy, and you can keep that while I take the other."
"Where are you going to take it?"
"I don't know yet – to one of the publishers, I suppose."
He groaned.
"I have been to every one of them – not a publisher in London but has had the offer of my book. They won't have it, any of them. Oh, it's their loss – I know that. But what is it to me?"
"Will you let me try – will you trust me with the manuscript?"
He reluctantly and jealously allowed her to take away the precious document. When it was out of his hands he tried to amuse himself with the first copy, but found no pleasure in it at all; because he thought continually of the scorn which had been hurled upon him and his discovery. He saw the heads of departments, one after the other, receiving him politely and listening to what he had to say. He saw them turning impatient – interrupting him, declining to hear any more – referring him to certain books in which he would find a refutation of his theories; and finally refusing even to see him.
Never was discoverer treated with such contempt – even the attendants at the Museum took their cue from the chiefs, and received his advances with scorn. Should they waste their time – the illiterate – in listening unprofitably to one whom the learned Dr. Birch and the profound Mr. Newton had sent away in contempt? Better sit in the spacious halls, bearing the wand of office and allowing the eyelids to fall gently, and the mind to wander away among pleasant pastures, where there was drink with tobacco. Then there were the people who had subscribed. Some of them were gentlemen connected with Australia. They had tossed him the twelve-and-sixpence in the middle of his talk, as if to get rid of him. Some of them had subscribed in pity for his poverty – some persuaded by his importunity. There was not one among them all (he reflected with humiliation) who subscribed because he believed. Stay – there was this ignorant dressmaker. One convert out of all to whom he had explained his discovery; one, only one.
There have been many religious enthusiasts – prophets, preachers, holders of strange doctrines – who have converted women so that they believed them inspired of heaven. Yet these men made other converts; whereas he (Fagg) had but this one, and she was not in love with him, because he was old now and no longer comely. This was a grand outcome of that Australian enthusiasm!
That day Mr. Fagg was disagreeable, considered as a companion. He found fault with the dinner, which was excellent, as usual. He complained that the beer was thick and flat; whereas it sparkled like champagne, and was as clear as a bell. He was cross in the afternoon, and wanted to prevent the child who sat in the drawing-room from practising her music; and he went out for his walk in a dark and gloomy mood.
Angela let him have his querulous way unrebuked, because she knew the cause of it. He was suffering from that dreadful, hopeless anger which falls upon the unappreciated. He was like some poet, who brings out volume after volume, yet meets with no admirers, and remains obscure. He was like some novelist who has produced a masterpiece – which nobody will read – or like some actor (the foremost of his age) who depletes the house; or like a dramatist, from whose acted works the public fly; or like a man who invents something which is to revolutionize things. Only people prefer their old way!
Good heavens! Is it impossible to move this vast inert mass called the world? Why, there are men who can move it at their will – even by a touch of their little finger – and the unappreciated with all their efforts cannot make the slightest impression. This, from time to time, makes them go mad! and at such periods they are unpleasant persons to meet. They growl at their clubs, they quarrel with their blood relations – they snarl at their wives, they grumble at their servants!
Daniel was having such a fit.
It lasted two whole days, and on the second Rebekah took upon herself to lead him aside and reprove him for the sin of ingratitude – because it was very well known to all that the man would have gone to the workhouse but for Miss Kennedy's timely help.
She asked him sternly what he had done to merit that daily bread which was given him without a murmur? And what excuse he could make for his bad temper and his rudeness toward the woman who had done so much for him?
He had no excuse to make – because Rebekah would not have understood the true one – wherefore she bade him repent and reform, or he would hear more from her. This threat frightened him, though it could not remove his irritation and depression; but, on the third day, sunshine and good cheer and hope, new hope and enthusiasm, returned to him. For Miss Kennedy announced to him with many smiles that a publisher had accepted his manuscript; and that it had already been sent to the printers.
"He will publish it for you," she said, "at no cost to yourself. He will give you as many copies as you wish to have for presentation among your friends and among your subscribers. You will like to send copies to your subscribers, will you not?"
He rubbed his hands and laughed aloud.
"That," he said, "will prove that I did not eat up the subscriptions."
"Of course," – Angela smiled, but did not contradict the proposition – "of course, Mr. Fagg. And if ever there was any doubt in your own mind about that money it is now removed, because the book will be in their hands; and all they wanted was the book."
"Yes, yes; and no one will be able to say – you know what. Will they?"
"No, no; you will have proofs sent you."
"Proofs," he murmured, "proofs in print! – will they send me proofs soon?"
"I believe you will have the whole book set up in a few weeks."
"Oh, the whole book! My book set up in print?"
"Yes. And if I were you, I would send an announcement of the work by the next mail to your Australian friends. Say that your discovery has at length assumed its final shape, and is now ripe for publication, after being laid before all the learned societies of London; and that it has been accepted by Messrs. – , the well-known publishers, and will be issued almost as soon as this announcement reaches Melbourne. Here is a slip that I have prepared for you."
He took it with glittering, eyes and stammering voice. The news seemed too good to be true.
"Now, Mr. Fagg, that this has been settled, there is another thing which I should like to propose for your consideration. Did you ever hear of that great Roman who saved his country in a time of peril, and then went back to the plough?"
Daniel shook his head.
"Is there any Hebrew inscription about him?" he asked.
"Not that I know of. What I mean is this: When your volume is sent, Mr. Fagg – when you have sent it triumphantly to all the learned societies and all your subscribers, and all the papers and everywhere (including your Australian friends), because the publisher will let you have as many copies as you please – would it not be a graceful thing, and a thing for future historians to remember, that you left England at the moment of your greatest fame, and went back to Australia to take up – your old occupation?"
Daniel never had considered the thing in this light, and showed no enthusiasm at the proposal.
"When your friends in Victoria prophesied fortune and fame, Mr. Fagg, they spoke out of their hopes and their pride in you. Of course, I do not know much about these things. How should I? Yet I am quite certain that it takes a long time for a learned discovery to make its way. There are jealousies – you have experienced them – and unwillingness to admit new things. You have met with that, too; and reluctance to unlearn old things. Why, you have met with that as well."
"I have," he said, "I have."
"As for granting a pension to a scholar – or a title, or anything of that sort – it is really never done. So that you would have to make your own living if you remained here."
"I thought that when the book was published people would buy it."
Angela shook her head.
"Oh, no! That is not the kind of book which is bought – very few people know anything about inscriptions. Those who do will go to the British Museum and read it there – one copy will do for all."
Daniel looked perplexed.
"You do not go back empty-handed," she said. "You will have a fine story to tell of how the great scholars laughed at your discovery, and how you got about and told people, and they subscribed, and your book was published, and how you sent it to all of them – to show the mistake they had made – and how the English people have got the book now, to confound the scholars; and how your mission is accomplished, and you are at home again – to live and die among your own people. It will be a glorious return, Mr. Fagg. I envy you the landing at Melbourne – your book under your arm. You will go back to your old township – you will give a lecture in the schoolroom on your stay in England, and your reception. And then you will take your old place again and follow your old calling, exactly the same as if you had never left it, but for the honor and reverence which people will pay you!"
Daniel cooed like a dove.
"It may be," the siren went on, "that people will pay pilgrimages to see you in your old age. They will come to see the man who discovered the Primitive Alphabet and the Universal Language. They will say: 'This in Daniel Fagg – the great Daniel Fagg, whose unaided intellect overset and brought to confusion all the scholars, and showed their learning was but vain pretence; who proved the truth of the Scriptures by his reading of tablets and inscriptions; and who returned when he had finished his task, with the modesty of a great mind, to his simple calling.'"
"I will go," said Daniel, banging the table with his fist; "I will go as soon as the book is ready."
