Wrecked in Port/Book III, Chapter I

by Edmund Hodgson Yates

Chapter I.In Harness.

It was the autumn of the year, in the spring of which Walter Joyce had returned to London from Westhope. Six months had elapsed since he had read, what he had almost imagined to be his death-warrant in Marian's reply to his letter containing the Berlin proposal. It was not his death-warrant; he had survived the shock, and, indeed, had borne the disappointment in a way that he did not think possible when the blow first fell upon him. Under the blessed, soothing influence of time, under the perhaps more effectual influence of active employment, his mind had been weaned from dwelling on that dread blank which, as he at first imagined, was to have been his sole outlook for the future. He was young, and strong, and impressionable; he returned to London inclined to be misanthropical and morose, disposed to believe in the breaking of hearts and the crushing of hopes, and the rather pleasant sensations of despair. But after a very short sojourn in the metropolis, he was compelled to avow to himself the wisdom of Lady Caroline Mansergh's prognostications concerning him, and the absolute truth of everything she had said. A life of moping, of indulgence in preposterous cynicism and self-compassion, was not for him; he was meant for far better things—action in the present, distinction in the future—those were to be his aims, and, after a fortnight's indolence and moodiness, he had flung himself into the work that was awaiting, and began to labour at it with all his energy and all his brain-power.

Some little time afterwards, when Joyce thought over his mental condition in those first days of his return to London, the cheap cynicism, the pettishness, and the languor which he had suffered to possess him, he wondered within himself why old Jack Byrne, with whom he had taken up his quarters, had not rebuked him for it, and one day, with some considerable confusion, he asked the old man the reason.

"Why didn't I speak to you about it, and pitch into you for it, my boy?" said the old man, with his peculiar soft laugh. "Because it's best to let some things have their run, and come to a stop of their own accord. I saw plainly enough what would be the result of that love business, long ago, when you first told me of it. Why didn't I say so then? Why, you don't imagine I should have attempted to influence you in such a matter, when I had never even seen the lady, and had only general experience to take as my guide? I did give you as many hints as I thought prudent or decent in a letter which I wrote to you, my lad; but you didn't seem to profit by them much, or, indeed, to take any heed of them. You went sailing away straight and smoothly enough until that squall came down upon you and carried away your masts and your rigging, and left you a helpless log tossing on the waters. It was so nice to be a helpless log, wasn't it?—so nice, that you thought you would never be anything else. But, God bless you, I knew differently; I'd seen the same case a hundred times before, and I knew if you were left alone you would come all right in time. And now you have come all right, and you're doing your work well, and they think highly of you at the Comet office."

"I'm glad of that; that's the best news you could give me. Do they think well of me? Do they think I do my work well, and——"

"Good Lord, what a swallow the lad has for flummery!" grambled old Byrne. "He'd like me to repeat every word of praise to him. It's wonderful to see how he glows under it—no, not wonderful, when one recollects how young he is. Ah, youth, youth! Do they? Yes, of course they do; you know that well enough. It's deuced lucky you gave up that notion of going to Berlin, Walter, boy."

"Yes," said Joyce, with a sigh, as he remembered all about the proposal; "I'm better here."

"Better here, I should think you were, indeed! A correspondent can't do much in the way of making his mark. He can be serious and well-informed, or chatty and nonsensical; he can elect between describing the councils of cabinets or the circumference of crinolines; but in either case his scope is limited, and he can never get much fame for himself. Now in your present position as an essayist and leader-writer of remarkable ability—oh, you needn't pretend to blush, you know I shouldn't say what I didn't think—there is possibly a very bright future in store for you! And to think that years ago you possessed a distaste for politics!"

"It does seem ridiculous," said Walter, smiling. "I am always amused when I remember my very wilful ignorance on such matters. However, the credit of the conversion, if credit there be, is entirely owing to you and O'Connor."

"Not entirely, I'm thinking," said the old man. "I recollect your telling me of a conversation you had with Lady Caroline Mansergh, in which certain hopes were expressed and certain suggestions made, which, I should say, had their effect in influencing your conduct. Am I right, Walter?" And Mr. Byrne looked hard and keenly from under his bushy eyebrows at his young friend.

"Perfectly right!" said Walter, meeting his glance. "I think that the remembrance of Lady Caroline's advice, and the knowledge that she thought I had within me the power of distinguishing myself, were the first inducements to me to shake off that horrible lethargic state into which I had fallen!"

"Well, we must take care that you fulfil all her ladyship's expectations, Walter! What you are doing now must merely be a stepping-stone to something much better. I don't intend to die until I have seen you a leader in the people's cause, my boy! Oh, yes, I allow you're soundly with them now, and fight their battles well and effectively with the pen; but I want to live to see you in Parliament, to hear you riddling the plutocrats with your banter, and overwhelming the aristocrats with your scorn!"

"My dear old friend, I fear you pitch the note a little too high," said Joyce, with a laugh. "I don't think you will ever see me among the senators."

"And why not?" asked old Byrne, in a very excited manner—" and why not, pray? Is there any one speaks better at the Club? Is there any one more popular among the leaders of the cause, or with them? If those miserable Tories had not swallowed the leek fifty times in succession, as they have just done, and thereby succeeded in clinging to office for yet a few months, the chiefs of the party, or at least of one section of it—the 'ultras,' as they are good enough to call us would have relied greatly on your advice and assistance, and when the election comes, as come it must within a very short time, you will see how you will be in requisition. And about your position, Walter? I think we should look to that at once. I think you should lose no time in entering yourself at some Inn of Court, and commence reading for the bar!"

"Don't ask me to make any change in my life at present, old friend!" said Walter. "No!" as he saw the old man with an impatient gesture about to speak—"no, I was not going to plead the want of the money; for, in the first place, I know you would lend it to me, and in the second I am myself making, as you know, an excellent income. But I don't want to undertake anything more just now than what I am actually engaged in. I am quite sufficiently occupied—and I am very happy."

Old Byrne was compelled to be satisfied with this declaration, but he grumbled out that it should only be temporary, and that he intended to see Walter in a very different position before he died.

Walter Joyce said nothing more than the truth when he said that he was very happy. He had fallen into exactly the kind of life which suited him, the pursuance of a congenial occupation amongst companions of similar tastes. There are, I take it, but few of us professional plyers of the pen who do not look back with regret and with something akin to wonder to that halcyon time when we first entered upon authorship; when the mere act of writing was in itself pleasant, when the sight of a proof-sheet was calculated to fill one with infinite delight, when one glowed with delight at praise, or writhed in agony under attack. In after life, when the novelty has entirely worn off, when the Pegasus which ambled, and kicked, and pranced, has settled down into the serviceable hack of ordinary use, often obliged, like other hacks, to go through his work and to put forth his paces at inopportune times and seasons, it seems impossible to believe that this freshness of feeling, this extraordinary enthusiasm, can ever have existed; unless, perchance, you see the reflex of yourself in some one else who is beginning to pursue the sunny verdant end of that path which with you at present has worn down into a very commonplace beaten track, and then you perceive that the illusion was not specially your own, but is common to all who are in that happy glorious season of youth.

Walter Joyce was thoroughly happy. He had pleasant rooms in Staples Inn—a quiet, quaint, old-world place, where the houses, with their overhanging eaves and gabled roofs and mullioned windows recal memories of Continental cities and college "quads," and yet are only just shut off from the never-ceasing bustle and riot of Holborn. The furniture of these rooms was not very new, and there was not very much of it; but the sitting-room boasted not merely of two big easy chairs, but of several rows of bookshelves, which had been well filled, by Jack Byrne's generosity, with books which the old man had himself selected; and in the bedroom there was a bed and a bath, which, in Joyce's opinion, satisfied all reasonable expectations. Here, in the morning, he read or wrote; for he was extending his connexion with literature, and found a ready market for his writings in several of the more thoughtful periodicals of the day. In the afternoon he would go down to the Comet office, and take part in the daily conference of the principal members of the staff. There present would be Mr. Warren, the proprietor of the paper, who did not understand much about journalism, as, indeed, could scarcely be expected of him, seeing that the whole of his previous life had been taken up in attending to the export provision trade, in which he had made his fortune, but who was a capital man of business, looked after the financial affairs of the concern, and limited his interference with the conduct of the paper in listening to what others had to say. There would be Mr. Saltwell, who devoted himself to foreign politics, who was a wonderful linguist and a skilful theological controversialist, and who, in his tight drab trousers, cut-away coat, and bird's-eye cravat, looked like a racing-trainer or a tout; Mr. Gowan, a Scotchman, a veteran journalist of enormous experience, who, as he used to say, had had scores of papers "killed under him;" Mr. Forrest, a slashing writer, but always in extremes, and who was always put on to any subject which it was required should be highly lauded or shamefully abused—it did not matter much to Mr. Forrest, who was a man of the world; and Mr. Ledingham, a man of great learning but very ponderous in style and recondite in subject, whose articles were described by Mr. Skimmer as being "like roast pig, very nice occasionally, but not to be indulged in often with impunity," were also usual attendants at the conference, which was presided over by the recognised editor of the Comet, Terence O'Connor.

Mr. O'Connor was the type of a class of journalists which yet exists, indeed, but is not nearly so numerous as it was a few years ago. Your newspaper editor of today dines with the duke and looks in at the countess's reception; his own reporter includes him amongst the distinguished company which he, the reporter, "observes" at select reunions; he rides in the Park, and drives down to his office from the House of Commons, where he has been the centre of an admiring circle of members, in his brougham. Shades of the great men of bygone days—of White and Berry, of Kew and Captain Shandon—think of that! Terence O'Connor was of the old school. He had made journalism his profession since he left Trinity, and had only won his position by hard labour and untiring perseverance, had written in and edited various provincial newspapers, had served his time as sub and hack on the London press, and had eventually risen to the editorial chair which he filled so admirably. A man of vast learning, with the simplicity of a child, of keen common-sense tempered with great amicability, an admirable writer, an ardent politician, wielding great power with never-failing impartiality, Terence O'Connor passed his life in a world in which he was exceptionally influential, and to which he was comparatively unknown. His neighbours at Clapham had no idea that the slim grey-haired gentleman whom they saw pottering about in his garden on summer afternoons, or lying on the grass under the shade of a big tree playing with his children, was the lightning-compeller and the thunder-creator of the Comet. Though most earnest while engaged in his work, it was his greatest delight to leave every trace of it behind him at his office, and to be entirely free from its influence when at home with his wife and children. Occasionally, of course, the few old friends who dined with him would start a political or literary discussion, in which he would bear his part, but he was never happy until the conversation found its way back into the ordinary social channels, or until a demand was made for music, of which he was passionately fond. It was a lucky thing for Walter Joyce to make the acquaintance and to win the regard of such a man as Terence O'Connor, who had a wonderfully quick eye for character, and who, having noticed Walter's readiness of appreciation and bright incisive style in the few articles which he wrote on the occasion of his first introduction by Mr. Byrne, suggested that the post at Berlin should be offered to him. The more they were thrown together the better they liked each other. Walter had the greatest admiration for O'Connor's talent and power of work, while the elder man looked kindly on his young friend's eagerness and enthusiasm, his desire for distinction, and his delight at laudation, perhaps as somewhat reflecting his own feelings before he had become settled down to the mill-horse grind—ah, how many years ago!

After the conference had broken up, Joyce, to whom, perhaps, a subject had been given to treat, would go back to his chambers and work at it for two or three hours, or he would remain at the office discussing the matter in detail with Terence O'Connor, and taking his friend's advice as to the manner of treatment. Or, if he were free, he would lounge in the Park, and stare at the equipages, and the toilettes, and the London panorama of luxury there constantly going by, all new to the country-bred young man, to whom, until he went to Lord Hetherington's, the old rumbling chariot of Sir Thomas Churchill, with its worsted-epauletted coachman and footmen, was a miracle of comfort and a triumph of taste. Or he would ramble out with Shimmer, or Forrest, or some other of his colleagues, to the suburbs, over the breezy heights of Hampstead, or through the green Willesden lanes, and get the city dust and smoke blown out of them. When he was not on duty at the office at night, Walter would sometimes take the newspaper admission and visit the theatre, but he had little taste for the drama, or rather, perhaps, for such dramatic representations as were then in vogue, and it pleased him much more to attend the meetings of the Forum, a club constituted for the purpose of discussing the principal political and social questions of the day, and composed of young barristers, and newspaper writers, with a sprinkling of public-office men, who met in the large room of a tavern situated in one of the quiet streets leading from Fleet-street to the river. The leaders of the different political parties, and others whose deeds or works had given them celebrity or notoriety, were happy in their ignorance of the existence of the Forum, or they must have been rendered uncomfortable by finding themselves the objects of so much wild denunciation. The members of the Forum were not in the habit of concealing their opinions, or of moderating the language in which those opinions were expressed, and the debate in which the then holders of office were not denounced as effete and useless nincompoops, bound by degrading ties of subserviency to a policy which, while originally dangerous, was now degrading, or in which the leaders of the Opposition were not stigmatised as base-bred ruffians, linked together by the common bond of ignorance with the common hope of rapine—was considered dull and spiritless indeed. As Mr. Byrne had intimated, Walter Joyce was one of the most prominent members of this debating club; he had a clear resonant voice, capable of excellent modulation, and spoke with fluency. His speeches, which were tinged with a far more pronounced radicalism—the effect of the teaching of Jack Byrne—than had previously been promulgated at the meetings of the Forum, soon became widely talked of among the members and their friends, and Walter's rising was eagerly looked forward to, and warmly hailed, not merely for the novelty of his doctrine, but for the boldness and the humour with which he sought to inculcate it. His success was so great that the heads of the Tory party in the club became alarmed, and thought it necessary to send off for Alister Portcullis, who was formerly the great speaker on their side, but who had recently become editor of a provincial paper, to return to town, and oppose Joyce on one or two special subjects of discussion. Portcullis came up to London, and the encounter took place before a room crowded to the ceiling (it was rumoured—and believed by some—that the Premier and the leader of the Opposition were present, with wigs drawn over their eyes, and comforters over their noses) and re-echoing to the cheers of the partisans. Walter was understood to have held his own, and, indeed, to have had the best of it; but Portcullis made a very good speech, covering his opponent with sarcasm and invective, and declaiming against the cause which he represented with a whirlwind of fury which greatly incensed old Jack Byrne, who happened to be sitting immediately beneath him.

Political feeling ran very high just at that time, and the result of the forthcoming election was looked forward to with the greatest confidence by the Radicals. The organisation of the party was very complete, a central committee, of which Mr. Byrne and Terence O'Connor were members, had its sittings in London, and was in daily communication with the various local committees of the principal provincial towns, and most of the intending candidates had been despatched to make a tour of the neighbourhood which they proposed to represent, with the view of ascertaining the feelings of the electors, and ingratiating themselves with them.

Among these touring candidates was young Mr. Bokenham, who aspired to represent the constituency of Brocksopp. Young Bokenham had been selected by the central committee principally because his father was a very influential manufacturer, and because he himself, though not specially clever or deeply versed in politics, was recommended as fluent, of good appearance, and eminently docile and loadable. The reports which during and after his visit came up from the local to the central committee by no means bore out the recommendation. The fact was that young Mr. Bokenham, who had at a very early age been sent to Eton, who had been a gentleman commoner of Christchurch, and who had always had his own way and the command of large sums of money to enable him to do as he pleased, had become, as is very often the case under the influence of such surroundings, a perfect type of the parvenu and the plutocrat, and had, if anything, rather an antipathy for that cause of which he was about to offer himself as one of the representatives. To announce this would, however, he was aware, be simply to renounce the very large fortune which would accrue to him at his father's death, and which the old man, who had been a staunch Radical from his earliest days, and who gloried in being a self-made man, would certainly have dispersed through a thousand charitable channels rather than allow one penny of it to be touched by his politically-renegade son. Moreover, young Bokenham pined for the distinction of parliament membership, which he knew, for the present at least, was only to be obtained by holding to his father's political principles, and so he professed to be in earnest in the matter, and went down to Brocksopp and called on the principal people of the place, and convened a few meetings and delivered a few speeches. But the Brocksopp folk were very badly impressed. They utterly failed to recognise young Tommy Bokenham, as they had always spoken of him among themselves during all the years of his absence, in the bearded, natty-booted, delicate-gloved gentleman, who minced his words and used a perfumed handkerchief, and talked about the chah-tah of our lib-ah-ties. His manner was unpleasant and offensive, and his matter was not half sufficiently peppered to suit the tastes of the Brocksopp Radicals, who could not be too frequently reminded that they were the salt of the earth, and that the horny hand of labour was what their intending representative was always wishing to clasp. Young Mr. Bokenham, no longer Tommy after he had once been seen, objected to the horny hand of labour, disliked the smell of factories, and the manner and appearance of the working-classes altogether. He could not drink much at the public-houses, and the smell of the strong shag tobacco made him ill, and in fact his first tour for canvassing was a woful and egregious failure, and was so reported to the central committee in London by their Brocksopp agents.

On this report the committee met, and had a long and earnest consultation. Brocksopp was an important place, and one which it was most desirable to secure. No other candidate possessing such wealth, or such local influence, as young Bokenham could be found, and it was therefore imperative that he should be carried through. It was, however, necessary that his mistakes should be pointed out to him, and he should be thoroughly well schooled and advised as to his future proceedings. He was accordingly invited to attend the next meeting of the committee, which he did, and received a three hours' drilling with great composure. He promised to adopt all the suggestions which were made, and to carry out all the plans which were proposed. Walter Joyce, who happened to be present, was much amused at Mr. Bokenham's great amiability and power of acquiescence, and was about saying so to Mr. Byrne, who was seated next him, when he was startled by hearing the candidate say, in answer to a question from one of the committee as to whether any one was in the field on the Tory side,

"Oh yes; an old gentleman named Creswell, a retired manufacturer of great wealth and position in those parts."

"Is he likely to make a strong fight?"

"Well, ya-as!" drawled young Bokenham. "Old boy's not supposed to care particularly about it himself, don't you know, but he's lately married a young wife—doosid pretty woman, and all that kind of thing—and they say she's set her heart on becoming the memberess."

"Do you hear that?" whispered Byrne to Joyce.

"I do!" replied Walter. "This man is a fool, but he must be got in, and Mr. Creswell must be kept out, at all hazards."

And Jack Byrne grinned.