believe in no one, sir. You are always incredulous about good," was the
accusation brought against the reader's very humble servant. Well, about the
contrition of this sinner, I confess I still continued to have doubts; and
thought a present of forty pounds to a son, to whom he owed thousands, was no
great proof of the doctor's amendment.
And oh! how vexed some people were, when the real story came out at last! Not
for the money's sake��not because they were wrong in argument, and I turned out
to be right. Oh, no! But because it was proved that this unhappy doctor had no
present intention of repenting at all. This brand would not come out of the
burning, whatever we might hope; and the doctor's supporters were obliged to
admit as much when they came to know the real story. "Oh, Philip," cries Mrs.
Laura, when next she saw Mr. Firmin. "How pleased I was to hear of that letter!"
"That letter?" asks the gentleman.
"That letter from your father at New York," says the lady.
"Oh," says the gentleman addressed, with a red face.
"What then? Is it not��is it not all true?" we ask.
"Poor Charlotte does not understand about business," says Philip; "I did not
read the letter to her. Here it is." And he hands over the document to me, and I
have the liberty to publish it.
"New York��
"And so, my dear Philip, I may congratulate myself on having achieved ancestral
honour, and may add grandfather to my titles? How quickly this one has come! I
feel myself a young man still, in spite of the blows of misfortune��at least, I
know I was a young man but yesterday, when I may say with our dear old poet, Non
sine glori� militavi. Suppose I too were to tire of solitary widowhood and
re-enter the married state? There are one or two ladies here who would still
condescend to look not unfavourably on the retired English gentleman. Without
vanity I may say it, a man of birth and position in England acquires a polish
and refinement of manner which dollars cannot purchase, and many a Wall Street
millionary might envy!"
"Your wife has been pronounced to be an angel by a little correspondent of mine,
who gives me much fuller intelligence of my family than my son condescends to
furnish. Mrs. Philip I hear is gentle; Mrs. Brandon says she is beautiful,��she
is all good-humoured. I hope you have taught her to think not very badly of her
husband's father? I was the dupe of villains who lured me into their schemes;
who robbed me of a life's earnings; who induced me by their false
representations to have such confidence in them, that I embarked all my own
property, and yours, my poor boy, alas! in their undertakings. Your Charlotte
will take the liberal, the wise, the just view of the case, and pity rather than
blame my misfortune. Such is the view, I am happy to say, generally adopted in
this city; where there are men of the world who know the vicissitudes of a
mercantile career, and can make allowances for misfortune! What made Rome at
first great and prosperous? Were its first colonists all wealthy patricians?
Nothing can be more satisfactory than the disregard shown here to mere pecuniary
difficulty. At the same time, to be a gentleman is to possess no trifling
privilege in this society, where the advantages of birth, respected name, and
early education always tell in the possessor's favour. Many persons whom I visit
here have certainly not these advantages; and in the highest society of the city
I could point out individuals who have had pecuniary misfortunes like myself,
who have gallantly renewed the combat after their fall, and are now fully
restored to competence, to wealth, and the respect of the world! I was in a
house in Fifth Avenue last night. Is Washington White shunned by his fellow-men
because he has been a bankrupt three times? Anything more elegant or profuse
than his entertainment I have not witnessed on this continent. His lady had
diamonds which a duchess might envy. The most costly wines, the most magnificent
supper, and myriads of canvas-backed ducks covered his board. Dear Charlotte, my
friend Captain Colpoys brings you over three brace of these from your
father-in-law, who hopes they will furnish your little dinner-table! We eat
currant jelly with them here, but I like an old English lemon and cayenne sauce
better.
"By the way, dear Philip, I trust you will not be inconvenienced by a little
financial operation, which necessity (alas!) has compelled me to perform.
Knowing that your quarter with the Upper Ten Thousand Gazette was now due, I
have made so bold as to request Colonel �� to pay it over to me. Promises to pay
must be met here as with us��an obdurate holder of an unlucky acceptance of mine
(I am happy to say there are very few such) would admit of no delay, and I have
been compelled to appropriate my poor Philip's earnings. I have only put you off
for ninety days: with your credit and wealthy friends you can easily negotiate
the bill enclosed, and I promise you that when presented it shall be honoured by
my Philip's ever affectionate father,
G. B. F."
"By the way, your Philalethes' letters are not quite spicy enough, my worthy
friend the colonel says. They are elegant and gay, but the public here desires
to have more personal news; a little scandal about Queen Elizabeth, you
understand? Can't you attack somebody! Look at the letters and articles
published by my respected friend of the New York Emerald! The readers here like
a high-spiced article: and I recommend P. F. to put a little more pepper in his
dishes. What a comfort to me it is to think that I have procured this place for
you, and have been enabled to help my son and his young family!
G. B. F."
Enclosed in this letter was a slip of paper which poor Philip supposed to be a
cheque when he first beheld it, but which turned out to be his papa's promissory
note, payable at New York four months after date. And this document was to
represent the money which the elder Firmin had received in his son's name!
Philip's eyes met his friend's when they talked about this matter. Firmin looked
almost as much ashamed as if he himself had done the wrong.
"Does the loss of this money annoy you?" asked Philip's friend.
"The manner of the loss does," said poor Philip. "I don't care about the money.
But he should not have taken this. He should not have taken this. Think of poor
Charlotte and the child being in want possibly! Oh, friend, it's hard to bear,
isn't it? I'm an honest fellow, ain't I? I think I am. I pray heaven I am. In
any extremity of poverty could I have done this? Well. It was my father who
introduced me to these people. I suppose he thinks he has a right to my
earnings: and if he is in want, you know, so he has."
"Had you not better write to the New York publisher and beg them henceforth to
remit to you directly?" asks Philip's friend.
"That would be to tell them that he has disposed of the money," groans Philip.
"I can't tell them that my father is a��"
"No; but you can thank them for having handed over such a sum on your account to
the do
ctor: and warn them that you will draw on them from this country
henceforth. They won't in this case pay the next quarter to the doctor."
"Suppose he is in want, ought I not to supply him?" Firmin said. "As long as
there are four crusts in the house, the doctor ought to have one. Ought I to be
angry with him for helping himself, old boy?" and he drinks a glass of wine,
poor fellow, with a rueful smile. By the way, it is my duty to mention here,
that the elder Firmin was in the habit of giving very elegant little
dinner-parties at New York, where little dinner-parties are much more costly
than in Europe��"in order," he said, "to establish and keep up his connection as
a physician." As a bon-vivant, I am informed, the doctor began to be celebrated
in his new dwelling-place, where his anecdotes of the British aristocracy were
received with pleasure in certain circles.
But it would be as well henceforth that Philip should deal directly with his
American correspondents, and not employ the services of so very expensive a
broker. To this suggestion he could not but agree. Meanwhile, ��and let this be
a warning to men never to deceive their wives in any the slightest
circumstances; to tell them everything they wish to know, to keep nothing hidden
from those dear and excellent beings��you must know, ladies, that when Philip's
famous ship of dollars arrived from America, Firmin had promised his wife that
baby should have a dear delightful white cloak trimmed with the most lovely
tape, on which poor Charlotte had often cast a longing eye as she passed by the
milliner and curiosity shops in Hanway Yard, which, I own, she loved to
frequent. Well: when Philip told her that his father had sent home forty pounds,
or what not, thereby deceiving his fond wife, the little lady went away straight
to her darling shop in the Yard��(Hanway Yard has become a street now, but ah!
it is always delightful)��Charlotte, I say, went off, ran off to Hanway Yard,
pavid with fear lest the darling cloak should be gone, found it��oh, joy!��still
dear infant, and was delighted with the effect of the garment, which all the
young ladies at Miss Isaacson's pronounced to be perfect; and took the cloak
away on baby's shoulders, promising to send the money, five pounds, if you
please, next day. And in this cloak baby and Charlotte went to meet papa when he
came home; and I don't know which of them, mamma or baby, was the most pleased
and absurd and happy baby of the two. On his way home from his newspaper, Mr.
Philip had orders to pursue a certain line of streets, and when his accustomed
hour for returning from his business drew nigh, Mrs. Char went down Thornhaugh
Street, down Charlotte Street, down Rathbone Place, with Betsy the nursekin and
baby in the new cloak. Behold, he comes at last��papa��striding down the street.
He sees the figures: he sees the child, which laughs, and holds out its little
pink hands, and crows a recognition. And "Look��look, papa," cries the happy
mother. (Away! I cannot keep up the mystery about the baby any longer, and
though I had forgotten for a moment the child's sex, remembered it the instant
after, and that it was a girl to be sure, and that its name was Laura Caroline).
"Look, look, papa!" cries the happy mother. "She has got another little tooth
since the morning, such a beautiful little tooth��and look here, sir, don't you
observe anything?"
"Any what?" asks Philip.
"La! sir," says Betsy, giving Laura Caroline a great toss, so that her white
cloak floats in the air.
"Isn't it a dear cloak?" cries mamma: "and doesn't baby look like an angel in
it? I bought it at Miss Isaacson's to-day, as you got your money from New York;
and oh, my dear, it only cost five guineas."
"Well, it's a week's work," sighs poor Philip; "and I think I need not grudge
that to give Charlotte pleasure." And he feels his empty pockets rather
ruefully.
"God bless you, Philip," says my wife, with her eyes full. "They came here this
morning, Charlotte and the nurse and the baby in the new��the new��." Here the
lady seized hold of Philip's hand, and fairly broke out into tears. Had she
embraced Mr. Firmin before her husband's own eyes, I should not have been
surprised. Indeed she confessed that she was on the point of giving way to this
most sentimental outbreak.
And now, my brethren, see how one crime is the parent of many, and one act of
duplicity leads to a whole career of deceit. In the first place, you see, Philip
had deceived his wife��with the pious desire, it is true, of screening his
father's little peculiarities�� but, ruat coelum, we must tell no lies. No: and
from this day forth I order John never to say Not at home to the greatest bore,
dun, dawdle of my acquaintance. If Philip's father had not deceived him, Philip
would not have deceived his wife; if he had not deceived his wife, she would not
have given five guineas for that cloak for the baby. If she had not given five
guineas for the cloak, my wife would never have entered into a secret
correspondence with Mr. Firmin, which might but for my own sweetness of temper
have bred jealousy, mistrust, and the most awful quarrels��nay, duels�� between
the heads of the two families. Fancy Philip's body lying stark upon Hampstead
Heath with a bullet through it, despatched by the hand of his friend! Fancy a
cab driving up to my own house, and from it��under the eyes of the children at
the parlour-windows ��their father's bleeding corpse ejected!�� Enough of this
dreadful pleasantry! Two days after the affair of the cloak, I found a letter in
Philip's handwriting addressed to my wife, and thinking that the note had
reference to a matter of dinner then pending between our families, I broke open
the envelope and read as follows:��
"Thornhaugh Street, Thursday.
"My dear, kind Godmamma,��As soon as ever I can write and speak, I will thank
you for being so kind to me. My mamma says she is very jealous, and as she
bought my cloak she can't think of allowing you to pay for it. But she desires
me never to forget your kindness to us, and though I don't know anything about
it now, she promises to tell me when I am old enough. Meanwhile I am your
grateful and affectionate little goddaughter,
L. C. F."
Philip was persuaded by his friends at home to send out the request to his New
York employers to pay his salary henceforth to himself; and I remember a
sorrow rather than in anger; in which the doctor pointed out that this
precautionary measure seemed to imply a doubt on Philip's side of his father's
honour; and surely, surely, he was unhappy enough and unfortunate enough already
without meriting this mistrust from his son. The duty of a son to honour his
father and mother was feelingly pointed out, and the doctor meekly trusted that
Philip's children would give him more confidence than he seemed to be inclined
to award to his unfortunate father. Never mind. He should b
ear no malice. If
Fortune ever smiled on him again, and something told him she would, he would
show Philip that he could forgive; although he might not perhaps be able to
forget that in his exile, his solitude, his declining years, his misfortune, his
own child had mistrusted him. This, he said, was the most cruel blow of all for
his susceptible heart to bear.
This letter of paternal remonstrance was enclosed in one from the doctor to his
old friend the Little Sister, in which he vaunted a discovery which he and some
other scientific gentlemen were engaged in perfecting�� of a medicine which was
to be extraordinarily efficacious in cases in which Mrs. Brandon herself was
often specially and professionally engaged, and he felt sure that the sale of
this medicine would go far to retrieve his shattered fortune. He pointed out the
complaints in which this medicine was most efficacious. He would send some of
it, and details regarding its use, to Mrs. Brandon, who might try its efficacy
upon her patients. He was advancing slowly, but steadily, in his medical
profession, he said; though, of course, he had to suffer from the jealousy of
his professional brethren. Never mind. Better times, he was sure, were in store
for all; when his son should see that a wretched matter of forty pounds more
should not deter him from paying all just claims upon him. Amen! We all heartily
wished for the day when Philip's father should be able to settle his little
accounts. Meanwhile the proprietors of the Gazette of the Upper Ten Thousand
were instructed to write directly to their London correspondent.
Although Mr. Firmin prided himself, as we have seen, upon his taste and
dexterity as sub-editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, I must own that he was a very
insubordinate officer, with whom his superiors often had cause to be angry.
Certain people were praised in the Gazette��certain others were attacked. Very
dull books were admired, and very lively works attacked. Some men were praised
for everything they did; some others were satirized, no matter what their works
were. "I find," poor Philip used to say, with a groan, "that in matters of
criticism especially, there are so often private reasons for the praise and the
blame administered, that I am glad, for my part, my only duty is to see the
paper through the press. For instance, there is Harrocks, the tragedian of Drury
Lane: every piece in which he appears is a masterpiece, and his performance the
greatest triumph ever witnessed. Very good. Harrocks and my excellent employer
are good friends, and dine with each other; and it is natural that Mugford
should like to have his friend praised, and to help him in every way. But
Balderson, of Covent Garden, is also a very fine actor. Why can't our critic see
his merit as well as Harrocks'? Poor Balderson is never allowed any merit at
all. He is passed over with a sneer, or a curt word of cold commendation, while
columns of flattery are not enough for his rival."
"Why, Mr. F., what a flat you must be, askin' your pardon," remarked Mugford, in
reply to his sub-editor's simple remonstrance. "How can we praise Balderson,
when Harrocks is our friend? Me and Harrocks are thick. Our wives are close
friends. If I was to let Balderson be praised, I should drive Harrocks mad. I
can't praise Balderson, don't you see, out of justice to Harrocks!"
Then there was a certain author whom Bickerton was for ever attacking. They had
had a private quarrel, and Bickerton revenged himself in this way. In reply to
Philip's outcries and remonstrances, Mr. Mugford only laughed: "The two men are
enemies, and Bickerton hits him whenever he can. Why, that's only human nature,
Mr. F.," says Philip's employer.
"Great heavens!" bawls out Firmin, "do you mean to say that the man is base
enough to strike at his private enemies through the press?"
"Private enemies! private gammon, Mr. Firmin!" cries Philip's employer. "If I