Kitabı oku: «The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XV
MISS BROWN NAMES THE DAY

George Robinson had been in the very act of coming to an understanding with Mr. Brown as to the proceeds of the business, when he was interrupted by that terrible affair of Mrs. Morony. For some days after that the whole establishment was engaged in thinking, talking, and giving evidence about the matter, and it was all that the firm could do to keep the retail trade going across the counter. Some of the young men and women gave notice, and went away; and others became so indifferent that it was necessary to get rid of them. For a week it was doubtful whether it would be possible to keep the house open, and during that week Mr. Brown was so paralyzed by his feelings that he was unable to give any assistance. He sat upstairs moaning, accompanied generally by his two daughters; and he sent a medical certificate to Worship Street, testifying his inability to appear before the magistrate. From what transpired afterwards we may say that the magistrate would have treated him more leniently than did the young women. They were aware that whatever money yet remained was in his keeping; and now, as at the time of their mother's death, it seemed fitting to them that a division should be made of the spoils.

"George," he said one evening to his junior partner, "I'd like to be laid decent in Kensal Green! I know it will come to that soon."

Robinson hereupon reminded him that care had killed a cat; and promised him all manner of commercial greatness if he could only rouse himself to his work. "The career of a merchant prince is still open to you," said Robinson, enthusiastically.

"Not along with Maryanne and Sarah Jane, George!"

"Sarah Jane is a married woman, and sits at another man's hearth. Why do you allow her to trouble you?"

"She is my child, George. A man can't deny himself to his child. At least I could not. And I don't want to be a merchant prince. If I could only have a little place of my own, that was my own; and where they wouldn't always be nagging after money when they come to see me."

Poor Mr. Brown! He was asking from the fairies that for which we are all asking, – for which men have ever asked. He merely desired the comforts of the world, without its cares. He wanted his small farm of a few acres, as Horace wanted it, and Cincinnatus, and thousands of statesmen, soldiers, and merchants, from their days down to ours; his small farm, on which, however, the sun must always shine, and where no weeds should flourish. Poor Mr. Brown! Such little farms for the comforts of old age can only be attained by long and unwearied cultivation during the years of youth and manhood.

It was on one occasion such as this, not very long after the affair of Mrs. Morony, that Robinson pressed very eagerly upon Mr. Brown the special necessity which demanded from the firm at the present moment more than ordinary efforts in the way of advertisement.

"Jones has given us a great blow," said Robinson.

"I fear he has," said Mr. Brown.

"And now, if we do not put our best foot forward it will be all up with us. If we flag now, people will see that we are down. But if we go on with audacity, all those reports will die away, and we shall again trick our beams, and flame once more in the morning sky."

It may be presumed that Mr. Brown did not exactly follow the quotation, but the eloquence of Robinson had its desired effect. Mr. Brown did at last produce a sum of five hundred pounds, with which printers, stationers, and advertising agents were paid or partially paid, and Robinson again went to work.

"It's the last," said Mr. Brown, with a low moan, "and would have been Maryanne's!"

Robinson, when he heard this, was much struck by the old man's enduring courage. How had he been able to preserve this sum from the young woman's hands, pressed as he had been by her and by Brisket? Of this Robinson said nothing, but he did venture to allude to the fact that the money must, in fact, belong to the firm.

This is here mentioned chiefly as showing the reason why Robinson did not for awhile renew the business on which he was engaged when Mrs. Morony's presence in the shop was announced. He felt that no private matter should be allowed for a time to interfere with his renewed exertions; and he also felt that as Mr. Brown had responded to his entreaties in that matter of the five hundred pounds, it would not become him to attack the old man again immediately. For three months he applied himself solely to business; and then, when affairs had partially been restored under his guidance, he again resolved, under the further instigation of Poppins, to put things at once on a proper footing.

"So you ain't spliced yet," said Poppins.

"No, not yet."

"Nor won't be, – not to Maryanne Brown. There was my wife at Brisket's, in Aldersgate Street, yesterday, and we all know what that means."

"What does it mean?" demanded Robinson, scowling fearfully. "Would you hint to me that she is false?"

"False! No! she's not false that I know of. She's ready enough to have you, if you can put yourself right with the old man. But if you can't, – why, of course, she's not to wait till her hair's grey. She and Polly are as thick as thieves, and so Polly has been to Aldersgate Street. Polly says that the Jones's are getting their money regularly out of the till."

"Wait till her hair be grey!" said Robinson, when he was left to himself. "Do I wish her to wait? Would I not stand with her at the altar to-morrow, though my last half-crown should go to the greedy priest who joined us? And she has sent her friend to Aldersgate Street, – to my rival! There must, at any rate, be an end of this!"

Late on that evening, when his work was over, he took a glass of hot brandy-and-water at the "Four Swans," and then he waited upon Mr. Brown. He luckily found the senior partner alone. "Mr. Brown," said he, "I've come to have a little private conversation."

"Private, George! Well, I'm all alone. Maryanne is with Mrs. Poppins, I think."

With Mrs. Poppins! Yes; and where might she not be with Mrs. Poppins? Robinson felt that he had it within him at that moment to start off for Aldersgate Street. "But first to business," said he, as he remembered the special object for which he had come.

"For the present it is well that she should be away," he said. "Mr. Brown, the time has now come at which it is absolutely necessary that I should know where I am."

"Where you are, George?"

"Yes; on what ground I stand. Who I am before the world, and what interest I represent. Is it the fact that I am the junior partner in the house of Brown, Jones, and Robinson?"

"Why, George, of course you are."

"And is it the fact that by the deed of partnership drawn up between us, I am entitled to receive one quarter of the proceeds of the business?"

"No, George, no; not proceeds."

"What then?"

"Profits, George; one quarter of the profits."

"And what is my share for the year now over?"

"You have lived, George; you must always remember that. It is a great thing in itself even to live out of a trade in these days. You have lived; you must acknowledge that."

"Mr. Brown, I am not a greedy man, nor a suspicious man, nor an idle man, nor a man of pleasure. But I am a man in love."

"And she shall be yours, George."

"Ay, sir, that is easily said. She shall be mine, and in order that she may be mine, I must request to know what is accurately the state of our account?"

"George," said Mr. Brown in a piteous accent, "you and I have always been friends."

"But there are those who will do much for their enemies out of fear, though they will do nothing for their friends out of love. Jones has a regular income out of the business."

"Only forty shillings or so on every Saturday night; nothing more, on my honour. And then they've babbies, you know, and they must live."

"By the terms of our partnership I am entitled to as much as he."

"But then, George, suppose that nobody is entitled to nothing! Suppose there is no profits. We all must live, you know, but then it's only hand to mouth; is it?"

How terrible was this statement as to the affairs of the firm, coming, as it did, from the senior partner, who not more than twelve months since entered the business with a sum of four thousand pounds in hard cash! Robinson, whose natural spirit in such matters was sanguine and buoyant, felt that even he was depressed. Had four thousand pounds gone, and was there no profit? He knew well that the stock on hand would not even pay the debts that were due. The shop had always been full, and the men and women at the counter had always been busy. The books had nominally been kept by himself; but who can keep the books of a concern, if he be left in ignorance as to the outgoings and incomings?

"That comes of attempting to do business on a basis of capital!" he said in a voice of anger.

"It comes of advertising, George. It comes of little silver books, and big wooden stockings, and men in armour, and cats-carrion shirts; that's what it's come from, George."

"Never," said Robinson, rising from his chair with energetic action. "Never. You may as well tell me that the needle does not point to the pole, that the planets have not their appointed courses, that the swelling river does not run to the sea. There are facts as to which the world has ceased to dispute, and this is one of them. Advertise, advertise, advertise! It may be that we have fallen short in our duty; but the performance of a duty can never do an injury." In reply to this, old Brown merely shook his head. "Do you know what Barlywig has spent on his physic; Barlywig's Medean Potion? Forty thousand a-year for the last ten years, and now Barlywig is worth; – I don't know what Barlywig is worth; but I know he is in Parliament."

"We haven't stuff to go on like that, George." In answer to this, Robinson knew not what to urge, but he did know that his system was right.

At this moment the door was opened, and Maryanne Brown entered the room. "Father," she said, as soon as her foot was over the threshold of the door; but then seeing that Mr. Brown was not alone, she stopped herself. There was an angry spot on her cheeks, and it was manifest from the tone of her voice that she was about to address her father in anger. "Oh, George; so you are there, are you? I suppose you came, because you knew I was out."

"I came, Maryanne," said he, putting out his hand to her, "I came – to settle our wedding day."

"My children, my children!" said Mr. Brown.

"That's all very fine," said Maryanne; "but I've heard so much about wedding days, that I'm sick of it, and don't mean to have none."

"What; you will never be a bride?"

"No; I won't. What's the use?"

"You shall be my bride; – to-morrow if you will."

"I'll tell you what it is, George Robinson; my belief of you is, that you are that soft, a man might steal away your toes without your feet missing 'em."

"You have stolen away my heart, and my body is all the lighter."

"It's light enough; there's no doubt of that, and so is your head. Your heels too were, once, but you've given up that."

"Yes, Maryanne. When a man commences the stern realities of life, that must be abandoned. But now I am anxious to commence a reality which is not stern, – that reality which is for me to soften all the hardness of this hardworking world. Maryanne, when shall be our wedding day?"

For a while the fair beauty was coy, and would give no decisive answer; but at length under the united pressure of her father and lover, a day was named. A day was named, and Mr. Brown's consent to that day was obtained; but this arrangement was not made till he had undertaken to give up the rooms in which he at present lived, and to go into lodgings in the neighbourhood.

"George," said she, in a confidential whisper, before the evening was over, "if you don't manage about the cash now, and have it all your own way, you must be soft." Under the influence of gratified love, he promised her that he would manage it.

"Bless you, my children, bless you," said Mr. Brown, as they parted for the night. "Bless you, and may your loves be lasting, and your children obedient."

CHAPTER XVI
SHOWING HOW ROBINSON WALKED UPON ROSES

"Will it ever be said of me when my history is told that I spent forty thousand pounds a-year in advertising a single article? Would that it might be told that I had spent ten times forty thousand." It was thus that Robinson had once spoken to his friend Poppins, while some remnant of that five hundred pounds was still in his hands.

"But what good does it do? It don't make anything."

"But it sells them, Poppins."

"Everybody wears a shirt, and no one wears more than one at a time. I don't see that it does any good."

"It is a magnificent trade in itself. Would that I had a monopoly of all the walls in London! The very arches of the bridges must be worth ten thousand a-year. The omnibuses are invaluable; the cabs are a mine of wealth; and the railway stations throughout England would give a revenue for an emperor. Poppins, my dear fellow, I fancy that you have hardly looked into the depths of it."

"Perhaps not," said Poppins. "Some objects to them that they're all lies. It isn't that I mind. As far as I can see, everything is mostly lies. The very worst article our people can get for sale, they call 'middlings;' the real middlings are 'very superior,' and so on. They're all lies; but they don't cost anything, and all the world knows what they mean. Bad things must be bought and sold, and if we said our things was bad, nobody would buy them. But I can't understand throwing away so much money and getting nothing."

Poppins possessed a glimmering of light, but it was only a glimmering. He could understand that a man should not call his own goods middling; but he could not understand that a man is only carrying out the same principle in an advanced degree, when he proclaims with a hundred thousand voices in a hundred thousand places, that the article which he desires to sell is the best of its kind that the world has yet produced. He merely asserts with his loudest voice that his middlings are not middlings. A little man can see that he must not cry stinking fish against himself; but it requires a great man to understand that in order to abstain effectually from so suicidal a proclamation, he must declare with all the voice of his lungs, that his fish are that moment hardly out of the ocean. "It's the poetry of euphemism," Robinson once said to Poppins; – but he might as well have talked Greek to him.

Robinson often complained that no one understood him; but he forgot that it is the fate of great men generally to work alone, and to be not comprehended. The higher a man raises his head, the more necessary is it that he should learn to lean only on his own strength, and to walk his path without even the assistance of sympathy. The greedy Jones had friends. Poppins with his easy epicurean laisser aller, – he had friends. The decent Brown, who would so fain be comfortable, had friends. But for Robinson, there was no one on whose shoulder he could rest his head, and from whose heart and voice he could receive sympathy and encouragement.

From one congenial soul, – from one soul that he had hoped to find congenial, – he did look for solace; but even here he was disappointed. It has been told that Maryanne Brown did at last consent to name the day. This occurred in May, and the day named was in August. Robinson was very anxious to fix it at an earlier period, and the good-natured girl would have consented to arrange everything within a fortnight. "What's the use of shilly-shallying?" said she to her father. "If it is to be done, let it be done at once. I'm so knocked about among you, I hardly know where I am." But Mr. Brown would not consent. Mr. Brown was very feeble, but yet he was very obstinate. It would often seem that he was beaten away from his purpose, and yet he would hang on it with more tenacity than that of a stronger man. "Town is empty in August, George, and then you can be spared for a run to Margate for two or three days."

"Oh, we don't want any nonsense," said Maryanne; "do we, George?"

"All I want is your own self," said Robinson.

"Then you won't mind going into lodgings for a few months," said Brown.

Robinson would have put up with an attic, had she he loved consented to spread her bridal couch so humbly; but Maryanne declared with resolution that she would not marry till she saw herself in possession of the rooms over the shop.

"There'll be room for us all for awhile," said old Brown.

"I think we might manage," said George.

"I know a trick worth two of that," said the lady. "Who's to make pa go when once we begin in that way? As I mean to end, so I'll begin. And as for you, George, there's no end to your softness. You're that green, that the very cows would eat you." Was it not well said by Mr. Robinson in his preface to these memoirs, that the poor old commercial Lear, whose name stood at the head of the firm, was cursed with a Goneril, – and with a Regan?

But nothing would induce Mr. Brown to leave his home, or to say that he would leave his home, before the middle of August, and thus the happy day was postponed till that time.

"There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip," said Poppins, when he was told. "Do you take care that she and Polly ain't off to Aldersgate Street together."

"Poppins, I wouldn't be cursed with your ideas of human nature, – not for a free use of all the stations on the North Western. Go to Aldersgate Street now that she is my affianced bride!"

"That's gammon," said Poppins. "When once she's married she'll go straight enough. I believe that of her, for she knows which side her bread's buttered. But till the splice is made she's a right to please herself; that's the way she looks at it."

"And will it not please her to become mine?"

"It's about the same with 'em all," continued Poppins. "My Polly would have been at Hong Kong with the Buffs by this time, if I hadn't knocked the daylight out of that sergeant." And Poppins, from the tone in which he spoke of his own deeds, seemed to look back upon his feat of valour with less satisfaction than it had given him at the moment. Polly was his own certainly; but the comfort of his small menage was somewhat disturbed by his increasing family.

But to return. Robinson, as we have said, looked in vain to his future partner in life for a full appreciation of his own views as to commerce. "It's all very well, I daresay," said she; "but one should feel one's way."

"When you launch your ship into the sea," he replied, "you do not want to feel your way. You know that the waves will bear her up, and you send her forth boldly. As wood will float upon water, so will commerce float on the ocean streams of advertisement."

"But if you ran aground in the mud, where are you then? Do you take care, George, or your boat 'll be water-logged."

It was during some of these conversations that Delilah cut another lock of hair from Samson's head, and induced him to confess that he had obtained that sum of five hundred pounds from her father, and spent it among those who prepared for him his advertisements. "No!" said she, jumping up from her seat. "Then he had it after all?"

"Yes; he certainly had it."

"Well, that passes. And after all he said!"

A glimmering of the truth struck coldly upon Robinson's heart. She had endeavoured to get from her father this sum and had failed. She had failed, and the old man had sworn to her that he had it not. But for what purpose had she so eagerly demanded it? "Maryanne," he said, "if you love another more fondly than you love me – "

"Don't bother about love, George, now. And so you got it out of him and sent it all flying after the rest. I didn't think you were that powerful."

"The money, Maryanne, belonged to the firm."

"Gracious knows who it belongs to now. But, laws; – when I think of all that he said, it's quite dreadful. One can't believe a word that comes out of his mouth."

Robinson also thought that it was quite dreadful when he reflected on all that she must have said before she had given up the task as helpless. Then, too, an idea came upon him of what he might have to endure when he and she should be one bone and one flesh. How charming was she to the eyes! how luxuriously attractive, when in her softer moments she would laugh, and smile, and joke at the winged hours as they passed! But already was he almost afraid of her voice, and already did he dread the fiercer glances of her eyes. Was he wise in this that he was doing? Had he not one bride in commerce, a bride that would never scold; and would it not be well for him to trust his happiness to her alone? So he argued within his own breast. But nevertheless, Love was still the lord of all.

"And the money's all gone?" said Maryanne.

"Indeed it is. Would I had as many thousands to send after it."

"It was like your folly, George, not to keep a little of it by you, knowing how comfortable it would have been for us at the beginning."

"But, my darling, it belonged to the firm."

"The firm! Arn't they all helping themselves hand over hand, except you? There was Sarah Jane in the shop behind the counter all yesterday afternoon. Now, I tell you what it is; if she's to come in I won't stand it. She's not there for nothing, and she with children at home. No wonder she can keep a nursemaid, if that's where she spends her time. If you would go down more into the shop, George, and write less of them little books in verse, it would be better for us all."

And so the time passed on towards August, and the fifteenth of that month still remained fixed as the happy day. Robinson spent some portion of this time in establishing a method of advertisement, which he flattered himself was altogether new; but it must be admitted in these pages that his means for carrying it out were not sufficient. In accordance with this project it would have been necessary to secure the co-operation of all the tailors' foremen in London, and this could not be done without a douceur to the men. His idea was, that for a period of a month in the heart of the London season, no new coat should be sent home to any gentleman without containing in the pocket one of those alluring little silver books, put out by Brown, Jones, and Robinson.

"The thing is, to get them opened and looked at," said Robinson. "Now, I put it to you, Poppins, whether you wouldn't open a book like that if you found that somebody had put it into your tail coat."

"Well, I should open it."

"You would be more or less than mortal did you not? If it's thrown into your cab, you throw it out. If a man hands it to you in the street, you drop it. If it comes by post, you throw it into the waste-paper basket. But I'll defy the sternest or the idlest man not to open the leaves of such a work as that when he first takes it out of his new dress-coat. Surprise will make him do so. Why should his tailor send him the book of B., J., and R.? There must be something in it. The name of B., J., and R., becomes fixed in his memory, and then the work is done. If the tailors had been true to me, I might have defied the world." But the tailors were not true to him.

During all this time nothing was heard of Brisket. It could not be doubted that Brisket, busy among his bullocks in Aldersgate Street, knew well what was passing among the Browns in Bishopsgate Street. Once or twice it occurred to Robinson that the young women, Maryanne namely and Mrs. Poppins, expected some intervention from the butcher. Was it possible that Mr. Brisket might be expected to entertain less mercenary ideas when he found that his prize was really to be carried off by another? But whatever may have been the expectations of the ladies, Brisket made no sign. He hadn't seen his way, and therefore he had retired from the path of love.

But Brisket, even though he did not see his way, was open to female seduction. Why was it, that at this eventful period of Robinson's existence Mrs. Poppins should have turned against him? Why his old friend, Polly Twizzle, should have gone over to his rival, Robinson never knew. It may have been because, in his humble way, Poppins himself stood firmly by his friend; for such often is the nature of women. Be that as it may, Mrs. Poppins, who is now again his fast friend, was then his enemy.

"We shall have to go to this wedding of George's," Poppins said to his wife, when the first week in August had already passed. "I suppose old Pikes 'ill give me a morning." Old Pikes was a partner in the house to which Mr. Poppins was attached.

"I shan't buy my bonnet yet awhile," said Mrs. Poppins.

"And why not, Polly?"

"For reasons that I know of."

"But what reasons?"

"You men are always half blind, and t'other half stupid. Don't you see that she's not going to have him?"

"She must be pretty sharp changing her mind, then. Here's Tuesday already, and next Tuesday is to be the day."

"Then it won't be next Tuesday; nor yet any Tuesday this month. Brisket's after her again."

"I don't believe it, Polly."

"Then disbelieve it. I was with him yesterday, and I'll tell you who was there before me; – only don't you go to Robinson and say I said so."

"If I can't make sport, I shan't spoil none," said Poppins.

"Well, Jones was there. Jones was with Brisket, and Jones told him that if he'd come forward now he should have a hundred down, and a promise from the firm for the rest of it."

"Then Jones is a scoundrel."

"I don't know about that," said Mrs. Poppins. "Maryanne is his wife's sister, and he's bound to do the best he can by her. Brisket is a deal steadier man than Georgy Robinson, and won't have to look for his bread so soon, I'm thinking."

"He hasn't half the brains," said Poppins.

"Brains is like soft words; they won't butter no parsnips."

"And you've been with Brisket?" said the husband.

"Yes; why not? Brisket and I was always friends. I'm not going to quarrel with Brisket because Georgy Robinson is afraid of him. I knew how it would be with Robinson when he didn't stand up to Brisket that night at the Hall of Harmony. What's a man worth if he won't stand up for his young woman? If you hadn't stood up for me I wouldn't have had you." And so ended that conversation.

"A hundred pounds down?" said Brisket to Jones the next day.

"Yes, and our bill for the remainder."

"The cash on the nail."

"Paid into your hand," said Jones.

"I think I should see my way," said Brisket; "at any rate I'll come up on Saturday."

"Much better say to-morrow, or Friday."

"Can't. It's little Gogham Fair on Friday; and I always kills on Thursday."

"Saturday will be very late."

"There'll be time enough if you've got the money ready. You've spoken to old Brown, I suppose. I'll be up as soon after six on Saturday evening as I can come. If Maryanne wants to see me, she'll find me here. It won't be the first time."

Thus was it that among his enemies the happiness of Robinson's life was destroyed. Against Brisket he breathes not a word. The course was open to both of them; and if Brisket was the best horse, why, let him win!

But in what words would it be right to depict the conduct of Jones?