IT is very curious how often the unintentional movements of other men concur in making a crisis in an individual life. When Edgar went to his club that evening he knew no reason why anything unusual should happen to him. His mind had been roused by sudden anxiety, that anxiety which, seizing a man all at once upon one particular point, throws a veil over everything by so doing, and showed yellowness or blackness into the common light; but he had no reason to suspect that any new light would come to him, or any new interest into his life, when he went dully and with a headache to his habitual seat at his habitual table and ate his dinner, which was not of a very elaborate character. There were more men than usual in the club that evening, and when Edgar had finished his dinner he went into the library, not feeling disposed for the long walk through the lighted streets with which he so often ended his evening. He took a book, but he was not in the mood to read. Several men nodded to him as they came and went; one, newly arrived, who had not seen him since his downfall, came up eagerly and talked for ten minutes before he went out. The man was nobody in particular, yet his friendliness was consolatory, and restored to Edgar some confidence in his own identity, which had seemed to be dropping from him. He put up his book before him when he was left again alone, and behind this shield looked at his companions, of whom he knew nothing or next to nothing.
One of the people whom he thus unconsciously watched was a man whom he had already noted on several evenings lately, and as to whose condition he was in some perplexity. The first evening Edgar had half stumbled over him with the idea that he was one of the servants, and in the glance of identification with which he begged pardon, decided that, though not one of the servants, he must be a shopkeeper, perhaps well off and retired, whom somebody had introduced, or who had been admitted by one of those chances which permit the rich to enter everywhere. Next evening when he saw the same man again, he rubbed out as it were with his finger the word shopkeeper, which he had, so to speak, written across him, and wrote “city-man” instead. A city-man may be anything; he may be what penny-a-liners call a merchant prince, without losing the characteristic features of his class. This man was about forty-five, he had a long face, with good but commonplace features, hair getting scanty on the top, and brown whiskers growing long into two points, after the fashion of the day. The first time he was in evening dress, having come in after dinner, which was the reason why Edgar took him for one of the attendants. The next time he was in less elaborate costume, and looked better; for evening dress is trying to a man who has not the air noble which christianizes those hideous garments. The third night again, Edgar, in imagination, drew a pen through the word “city-man,” and wondered whether the stranger could be a successful artist, a great portrait-painter, something of that description, a prosperous man to whom art had become the most facile and most lucrative of trades. On this particular night he again changed his opinion, crossed the word artist and put man about town, indefinitest of designations, yet infinitely separated from all the others. Thus blurred and overwritten by so many attempts at definition, the new-comer attracted his attention, he could scarcely tell why. There was nothing remarkable about the man; he had grey eyes, a nose without much character, loose lips disposed to talk, an amiable sort of commonness, eagerness, universal curiosity in his aspect. He knew most people in the room, and went and talked to them, to each a little; he looked at all the papers without choice of politics; he took down a great many books, looked at them and put them back again. Edgar grew a little interested in him on this special evening. He had a long conversation with one of the servants, and talked to him sympathetically, almost anxiously, ending by giving him an address, which the man received with great appearance of gratitude. Might he be a physician perhaps? But his bearing and his looks were alike against this hypothesis. “Benevolent,” Edgar said to himself.
His attention, however, was quite drawn away from this stranger by the sudden entrance of Lord Newmarch, who like himself was a member of the club, and who came in hurriedly, accompanied by some one less dignified but more eager than himself, with whom he was discussing some subject which required frequent reference to books. Edgar felt his heart stir as he perceived the great man enter. Was it possible that his fate depended, absolutely depended, upon the pleasure of this man—that two words from him might make his fortune secure, or plunge him into a deeper and sickening uncertainty which could mean only ruin? Good heaven, was it possible? A kind of inertness, moral cowardice, he did not know what to call it—perhaps the shrinking a doomed man feels from actual hearing of his fate—had kept him from going to the office to put the arbiter of his destinies in mind of his promise. Now he could not let this opportunity slip; he must go to him, he must ask him what was to be the result. Up to this morning he had felt himself sure of his post, now he felt just as sure of rejection. Both impressions no doubt were equally unreasonable; but who can defend himself against such impressions? Gradually Edgar grew breathless as he watched that discussion which looked as if it would never end. What could it be about? Some vague philanthropico-political question, some bit of doctrinarianism of importance to nobody—while his was a matter of death and life. To be sure this was his own fault, for he might, as you will perceive, dear reader, have gone to Lord Newmarch any day, and found him at his office, where probably, amid all the sublime business there, Edgar’s affairs had gone entirely out of his head. But if you think the suggestion that it was his own fault made the suspense now a straw-weight more easy to him, this is a point on which I do not agree with you. The consequences of our own faults are in all circumstances the most difficult to bear.
Oddly enough, the stranger whom Edgar had been watching, seemed anxious to speak to Lord Newmarch too. Edgar’s eyes met his in their mutual watch upon the Minister, who went on disputing with his companion, referring to book after book. It was some military question of which I suppose Lord Newmarch knew as much as his grandmother did, and the other was a hapless soldier endeavouring in vain to convey a lucid description and understanding of some important technical matter to the head of the Secretary of State. In vain; Lord Newmarch did not try to understand—he explained; to many people this method of treating information is so much the most natural. And the stranger watched him on one side, and Edgar on the other. Their eyes met more than once, and after a while the humour of the situation struck Edgar, even in his trouble, and he smiled; upon which a great revolution made itself apparent in the other’s countenance. He smiled too; not with the sense of humour which moved Edgar, but with a gleam of kindness in his face, which threw a certain beauty over it. Edgar was struck with a strange surprise: he was taken aback at the same time, he felt as if somehow he must have appealed to the kindness, the almost pity in the other’s face. What had he done to call forth such an expression? His newborn pride jumped up in arms; and yet there was no possibility of offence meant, and nothing to warrant offence being taken. Edgar, however, averted his eyes hastily, and watched Lord Newmarch no more. And then he took himself to task, and asked himself, Was it an offence to look at him kindly? Was he offended by a friendly glance? Good heavens! what was he coming to, if it was so.
Presently Edgar’s heart beat still higher, for Lord Newmarch’s companion rose to go, and he, having caught sight of the stranger, remained, and went up to him holding out his hand. Edgar could but wait on, and bide his time; his book was still before him, at which he had never looked. A sickening sense of humiliation crept over him. He felt all the misery of dependence; here was he, so lately this man’s equal, waiting, sickening for a word from him, for a look, wondering what he would say, questioning with himself, while his heart beat higher and higher, and the breath came quickly on his lips. Good heavens, wondering what Newmarch would say! a man whom he had so laughed at, made fun of, but who was now to be the very arbiter of his fate, whose word would make all the difference between a secure and useful and worthy future, and that impoverishment of hope, and means, and capability altogether, which some call ruin—and justly call.
While Edgar sat thus waiting, excitement gradually gaming upon him, he saw with some surprise that the man to whom he had given so many different descriptions, was drawing back and pushing Lord Newmarch towards him; and seeing this, he got up, with a half-shrinking from his fate, half-eagerness to hear it.
“All right,” said the unknown, “your turn first. The great man must give us all audience in turn;” and with a little nod he went to the other end of the room and took up a newspaper, of which he probably made as little use as Edgar had been doing of his book.
“Droll fellow!” said Newmarch, “how d’ye do, eh, Earnshaw? I have been in town this month past, but you have never looked me up.”
“I feared to bore you,” said Edgar, hastily.
“It is my business never to be bored,” said Lord Newmarch, with a certain solemnity, which was natural to him. “Where have you been—in the country? what here all this time! I wish I had known; I seldom come here, except for the library, which is wonderfully good, as perhaps you know. That was Cheeseman that was arguing with me—Cheeseman, you know, one of those practical people—and insists upon his own way.”
“I wonder,” said Edgar, uneasily, “whether you have ever thought again of a small matter I went to you about?”
“What, the messengership?” said Lord Newmarch, “what do you take me for—eh, Earnshaw? Of course I have thought of it; there is never a week that I do not hope something may happen to old Runtherout; I don’t mean anything fatal of course; but there he sticks from month to month, and probably so he will from year to year.”
Edgar felt his countenance falling, falling. He felt, or thought he felt, his jaw drop. He felt his heart go down, down, like a stone. He put a miserable smile upon his miserable face. “Then I suppose there is no chance for me,” he said.
“Oh yes, my dear fellow, certainly there is a chance—as much chance as there ever was,” said Lord Newmarch, cheerfully, “these things, of course, cannot be altered all at once, but as soon as old Runtherout gives up, which cannot be long—I do not mind for my part what anyone says, I shall put you in. If you only knew what it would have been to me to have you in Berlin now! You speak German quite fluently, don’t you? Good heavens, what a loss to me!”
And, good heavens what a loss to me! Edgar felt disposed to say. As much chance as there ever was! then what had the chance been at first, for which he had wasted so much time and all his little stock of money. God help him! he had to receive the news with a smile, the best he could muster, and to listen to Lord Newmarch’s assurance that a few months could make very little difference. “Oh, very little difference!” echoed poor Edgar, with that curious fictitious brassy (why he thought it was brassy I cannot tell, but that was the adjective he used to himself) brassy imitation of a smile; and Lord Newmarch went on talking somehow up in the air beside him, about a number of things, to which he said yes and no mechanically with some certain kind of appropriateness, I suppose, for nobody seemed to find out the semi-consciousness in which he was—until the great man suddenly recollected that he must speak a few words to Tottenham, and fell back upon the man with worn grey eyes and loose lips, who sprang up from behind his newspaper like a jack in a box. Edgar, for his part, dropped down in his chair something like the same toy when shut up in its hiding-place. There was a buzzing in his ears again as there had been when he had his first interview with the Minister—but this time the giddiness was more overpowering; a hundred thoughts passed through his mind in a moment, each crowding upon each, a noiseless, breathless crowd. What was he to do? Everything seemed to be shown to him in the space of a moment, as fable says, a whole lifetime is shown in a moment to those who die suddenly. Good God! a few months! what was he to do?
Some people can face the prospect of living for a few months on nothing quite pleasantly, and some people do it habitually (without being at all bad people), and get through somehow, and come to no tragical end. But Edgar was young and unaccustomed to poverty. He was even unaccustomed to live from hand to mouth, as so many of us do, light-hearted wretches, without taking thought for the morrow. It was some time, it was true, before he was roused to think of the morrow at all, but, when he did, it seized upon him like a vulture. He sank back into his chair, and sat there like a log, with vacant eyes, but mind preternaturally busy and occupied. What was he to do?
He was roused from this outward stupor, but inner ferment, by seeing Newmarch again come up accompanied by the stranger, whose very existence he had forgotten. “Mr. Tottenham, Mr. Edgar Earnshaw,” said the Under-Secretary, “one of my best friends. Come and see me, won’t you, in Eaton Place. I must go now; and come to the office soon, and let us talk your affair over. The moment old Runtherout will consent to take himself out of the way—As for you, Tottenham, I envy you. All your schemes in your own hands, no chief to thwart you, no office to keep on recommending this man and that, when they know you have a man of your own. You may thank heaven that you have only your own theories to serve, and not Her Majesty. Good night, good night.”
“Good night,” said Edgar, absently.
Mr. Tottenham said nothing, but he gave Lord Newmarch a finger to shake, and turned to his new companion, who sat with his head down, and paid little attention to his presence. He fixed his eyes very closely on Edgar, which is a thing that can scarcely be done without attracting finally the notice of the person looked at. When he had caught Edgar’s wondering but dazed and dreamy look, he smiled—the same smile by which Edgar had already been half pleased, half angered.
“Mr. Earnshaw,” he said, “you have a story, and I know it. I hope I should have tried to behave as well myself; but I don’t know. And I have a story too. Will you come into the smoking-room if you have nothing better to do, and I’ll tell it you? I call it the history of a very hard case. Newmarch left you to me as his substitute, for he knew I wanted to talk. I like the exchange. He’s a profound blockhead, though he’s Secretary of State. Come and smoke a cigar.”
Edgar rose mechanically, he scarcely knew why; he was pale; he felt his legs almost give way under him as he moved across the passage to the smoking-room. He did not want to smoke, nor to know Mr. Tottenham’s story; but he had not strength of mind to resist what was asked of him.
“A few months,” he kept saying to himself. It seemed to him that a sudden indifference to everything else, to all things greater and more distant, had come into his mind. For the first time in his life he was self-engrossed, self-absorbed, able to think of nothing but his own necessities, and what he was to do. So strange was this to Edgar, so miserable did he feel it, that even on the short journey from one room to another he made an effort to shake off the sudden chains with which this sudden necessity had bound him, and was appalled by his own weakness, almost by a sense of guilt, when he found that he could take no interest whatever in Mr. Tottenham, that he could think of nothing but himself. For the first time, there was nobody but himself involved; no justice to be done, no kindness to be shown to others. Wherever other people are concerned, a certain breadth, a certain freedom and largeness, come into the question, even though the other people may be poor and small enough; but how mean the generous man feels, how petty and miserable, when he, and he only, becomes by any twist of fortune the centre of all his thoughts!