Get the bill, and order the omnibus round!" A crowd was on one side of the
table, and the other. One of the cousins had not the least wish that the quarrel
should proceed any further.
When, being in a quarrel, Philip Firmin assumes the calm and stately manner, he
is perhaps in his most dangerous state. Lord Ascot's phaeton (in which Mr.
Ringwood showed a great unwillingness to take a seat by the driver) was at the
hotel gate, an omnibus and a private carriage or two were in readiness to take
home the other guests of the feast. Ascot went into the hotel to light a final
cigar, and now Philip springing forward, caught by the arm the gentleman sitting
on the front seat of the phaeton.
"Stop!" he said. "You used a word just now��"
"What word? I don't know anything about words!" cries the other, in a loud
voice.
"You said 'insulted,"' murmured Philip, in the gentlest tone.
"I don't know what I said," said Ringwood, peevishly.
"I said, in reply to the words which you forget, 'that I would knock you down,'
or words to that effect. If you feel in the least aggrieved, you know where my
chambers are��with Mr. Vanjohn, whom you and your mistress inveigled to play
cards when he was a boy. You are not fit to come into an honest man's house. It
was only because I wished to spare a lady's feelings that I refrained from
turning you out of mine. Good-night, Ascot!" and with great majesty Mr. Philip
returned to his companion and the Hansom cab which was waiting to convey these
two gentlemen to London.
I was quite correct in my surmise that Philip's antagonist would take no further
notice of the quarrel to Philip, personally. Indeed, he affected to treat it as
a drunken brawl, regarding which no man of sense would allow himself to be
seriously disturbed. A quarrel between two men of the same family;��between
Philip and his own relative who had only wished him well?��It was absurd and
impossible. What Mr. Ringwood deplored was the obstinate ill-temper and known
violence of Philip, which were for ever leading him into these brawls, and
estranging his family from him. A man seized by the coat, insulted, threatened
with a decanter! A man of station so treated by a person whose own position was
most questionable, whose father was a fugitive, and who himself was struggling
for precarious subsistence! The arrogance was too great. With the best wishes
for the unhappy young man, and his amiable (but empty-headed) little wife, it
was impossible to take further notice of them. Let the visits cease. Let the
carriage no more drive from Berkeley Square to Milman Street. Let there be no
presents of game, poultry, legs of mutton, old clothes and what not. Henceforth,
therefore, the Ringwood carriage was unknown in the neighbourhood of the
Foundling, and the Ringwood footmen no more scented with their powdered heads
the Firmins' little hall-ceiling. Sir John said to the end that he was about to
procure a comfortable place for Philip, when his deplorable violence obliged Sir
John to break off all relations with the most misguided young man.
Nor was the end of the mischief here. We have all read how the gods never appear
alone��the gods bringing good or evil fortune. When two or three little pieces
of good luck had befallen our poor friend, my wife triumphantly cried out, "I
told you so! Did I not always say that heaven would befriend that dear, innocent
wife and children; that brave, generous, imprudent father?" And now when the
evil days came, this monstrous logician insisted that poverty, sickness,
dreadful doubt and terror, hunger and want almost, were all equally intended for
Philip's advantage, and would work for good in the end. So that rain was good,
and sunshine was good; so that sickness was good, and health was good; that
Philip ill was to be as happy as Philip well, and as thankful for a sick house
and an empty pocket as for a warm fireside and a comfortable larder. Mind, I ask
no Christian philosopher to revile at his ill-fortunes, or to despair. I will
accept a toothache (or any evil of life) and bear it without too much grumbling.
But I cannot say that to have a tooth pulled out is a blessing, or fondle the
hand which wrenches at my jaw.
"They can live without their fine relations, and their donations of mutton and
turnips," cries my wife with a toss of her head. "The way in which those people
patronized Philip and dear Charlotte was perfectly intolerable. Lady Ringwood
knows how dreadful the conduct of that Mr. Ringwood is, and��and I have no
patience with her!" How, I repeat, do women know about men? How do they
telegraph to each other their notices of alarm and mistrust? and fly as birds
rise up with a rush and a skurry when danger appears to be near? All this was
very well. But Mr. Tregarvan heard some account of the dispute between Philip
and Mr. Ringwood, and applied to Sir John for further particulars; and Sir
John��liberal man as he was and ever had been, and priding himself little,
heaven knew, on the privilege of rank, which was merely adventitious�� was
constrained to confess that this young man's conduct showed a great deal too
much laissez aller. He had constantly, at Sir John's own house, manifested an
independence which had bordered on rudeness; he was always notorious for his
quarrelsome disposition, and lately had so disgraced himself in a scene with Sir
John's eldest son, Mr. Ringwood��had exhibited such brutality, ingratitude
and��and inebriation, that Sir John was free to confess he had forbidden the
gentleman his door.
"An insubordinate, ill-conditioned fellow, certainly!" thinks Tregarvan. (And I
do not say, though Philip is my friend, that Tregarvan and Sir John were
altogether wrong regarding their prot�g�.) Twice Tregarvan had invited him to
breakfast, and Philip had not appeared. More than once he had contradicted
Tregarvan about the Review. He had said that the Review was not getting on, and
if you asked Philip his candid opinion, it would not get on. Six numbers had
appeared, and it did not meet with that attention which the public ought to pay
to it. The public was careless as to the designs of that Great Power which it
was Tregarvan's aim to defy and confound. He took counsel with himself. He
walked over to the publisher's and inspected the books; and the result of that
inspection was so disagreeable, that he went home straightway and wrote a letter
to Philip Firmin, Esq., New Milman Street, Guildford Street, which that poor
fellow brought to his usual advisers.
That letter contained a cheque for a quarter's salary, and bade adieu to Mr.
Firmin. The writer would not recapitulate the causes of dissatisfaction which he
felt respecting the conduct of the Review. He was much disappointed in its
progress, and dissatisfied with its general management. He thought an
opportunity was lost which never could be recovered for exposing the designs of
a Power which menaced the liberty and tranquillity of Europe. Had it been
directed with proper energy that Review might have been an aegis to that
threatened liberty, a lamp to lighten the darkness of that
menaced freedom. It
might have pointed the way to the cultivation bonarum literarum; it might have
fostered rising talent; it might have chastised the arrogance of so-called
critics; it might have served the cause of truth. Tregarvan's hopes were
disappointed: he would not say by whose remissness or fault. He had done his
utmost in the good work, and finally, would thank Mr. Firmin to print off the
articles already purchased and paid for, and to prepare a brief notice for the
next number, announcing the discontinuance of the Review; and Tregarvan showed
my wife a cold shoulder for a considerable time afterwards, nor were we asked to
his tea-parties, I forget for how many seasons.
This to us was no great loss or subject of annoyance: but to poor Philip? It was
a matter of life and almost death to him. He never could save much out of his
little pittance. Here were fifty pounds in his hand, it is true; but bills,
taxes, rent, the hundred little obligations of a house, were due and pressing
upon him; and in the midst of his anxiety our dear little Mrs. Philip was about
to present him with a third ornament to his nursery. Poor little Tertius arrived
duly enough, and, such hypocrites were we, that the poor mother was absolutely
thinking of calling the child Tregarvan Firmin, as a compliment to Mr.
Tregarvan, who had been so kind to them, and Tregarvan Firmin would be such a
pretty name she thought. We imagined the Little Sister knew nothing about
Philip's anxieties. Of course, she attended Mrs. Philip through her troubles,
and we vow that we never said a word to her regarding Philip's own. But Mrs.
Brandon went in to Philip one day, as he was sitting very grave and sad with his
two first-born children, and she took both his hands, and said, "You know, dear
Philip, I have saved ever so much: and I always intended it for��you know who."
And here she loosened one hand from him, and felt in her pocket for a purse, and
thanked God for sending him such a dear friend, and gave her back her purse,
though indeed he had but five pounds left in his own when this benefactress came
to him.
Yes: but there were debts owing to him. There was his wife's little portion of
fifty pounds a year, which had never been paid since the second quarter after
their marriage, which had happened now more than three years ago. As Philip had
scarce a guinea in the world, he wrote to Mrs. Baynes, his wife's mother, to
explain his extreme want, and to remind her that this money was due. Mrs.
General Baynes was living at Jersey at this time in a choice society of half-pay
ladies, clergymen, captains, and the like, among whom I have no doubt she moved
as a great lady. She wore a large medallion of the deceased General on her neck.
She wept dry tears over that interesting cameo at frequent tea-parties. She
never could forgive Philip for taking away her child from her, and if any one
would take away others of her girls, she would be equally unforgiving. Endowed
with that wonderful logic with which women are blessed, I believe she never
admitted, or has been able to admit to her own mind, that she did Philip or her
daughter a wrong. In the tea-parties of her acquaintance she groaned over the
extravagance of her son-in-law and his brutal treatment of her blessed child.
Many good people agreed with her and shook their respectable noddles when the
name of that prodigal Philip was mentioned over her muffins and Bohea. He was
prayed for; his dear widowed mother-in-law was pitied, and blessed with all the
comfort reverend gentlemen could supply on the spot. "Upon my honour, Firmin,
Emily and I were made to believe that you were a monster, sir," the stout Major
MacWhirter once said; "and now I have heard your story, by Jove, I think it is
you, and not Eliza Baynes, who were wronged. She has a deuce of a tongue, Eliza
has: and a temper ��poor Charles knew what that was!" In fine, when Philip,
reduced to his last guinea, asked Charlotte's mother to pay her debt to her sick
daughter, Mrs. General B. sent Philip a ten-pound note, open, by Captain Swang,
of the Indian army, who happened to be coming to England. And that, Philip says,
of all the hard knocks of fate, has been the very hardest which he had had to
endure.
But the poor little wife knew nothing of this cruelty, nor, indeed, of the very
poverty which was hemming round her curtain; and in the midst of his griefs,
Philip Firmin was immensely consoled by the tender fidelity of the friends whom
God had sent him. Their griefs were drawing to an end now. Kind readers all, may
your sorrows, may mine, leave us with hearts not embittered, and humbly
acquiescent to the Great Will!
CHAPTER XII. IN WHICH WE REACH THE LAST STAGE BUT ONE OF THIS JOURNEY.
Although poverty was knocking at Philip's humble door, little Charlotte in all
her trouble never knew how menacing the grim visitor had been. She did not quite
understand that her husband in his last necessity sent to her mother for his
due, and that the mother turned away and refused him. "Ah," thought poor Philip,
groaning in his despair, "I wonder whether the thieves who attacked the man in
the parable were robbers of his own family, who knew that he carried money with
him to Jerusalem, and waylaid him on the journey?" But again and again he has
thanked God, with grateful heart, for the Samaritans whom he has met on life's
road, and if he has not forgiven, it must be owned he has never done any wrong
to those who robbed him.
Charlotte did not know that her husband was at his last guinea, and a prey to
dreadful anxiety for her dear sake, for after the birth of her child a fever
came upon her; in the delirium consequent upon which the poor thing was ignorant
of all that happened round her. A fortnight with a wife in extremity, with
crying infants, with hunger menacing at the door, passed for Philip somehow. The
young man became an old man in this time. Indeed, his fair hair was streaked
with white at the temples afterwards. But it must not be imagined that he had
not friends during his affliction, and he always can gratefully count up the
names of many persons to whom he might have applied had he been in need. He did
not look or ask for these succours from his relatives. Aunt and uncle Twysden
shrieked and cried out at his extravagance, imprudence, and folly. Sir John
Ringwood said he must really wash his hands of a young man who meanaced the life
Ringwood joined chorus, cursed Philip, and said he didn't care, and the beggar
ought to be hung, and his father ought to be hung. But I think I know
half-a-dozen good men and true who told a different tale, and who were ready
with their sympathy and succour. Did not Mrs. Flanagan, the Irish laundress, in
a voice broken by sobs and gin, offer to go and chare at Philip's house for
nothing, and nurse the dear children? Did not Goodenough say, "If you are in
need, my dear fellow, of course you know where to come;" and did he not actually
give two prescriptions, one for poor Charlotte, one for fifty pounds to be taken
immediately, which he handed to the nurse by mistake? You may be sure she did
not appropriate the money, for of course you know that the nurse was Mrs.
Brandon. Charlotte has one remorse in her life. She owns she was jealous of the
Little Sister. And now when that gentle life is over, when Philip's poverty
trials are ended, when the children go sometimes and look wistfully at the grave
of their dear Caroline, friend Charlotte leans her head against her husband's
shoulder, and owns humbly how good, how brave, how generous a friend heaven sent
them in that humble defender.
Have you ever felt the pinch of poverty? In many cases it is like the dentist's
chair, more dreadful in the contemplation than in the actual suffering. Philip
says he never was fairly beaten, but on that day when, in reply to his
solicitation to have his due, Mrs. Baynes's friend, Captain Swang, brought him
the open ten-pound note. It was not much of a blow; the hand which dealt it made
the hurt so keen. "I remember," says he, "bursting out crying at school, because
a big boy hit me a slight tap, and other boys said, 'Oh, you coward.' It was
that I knew the boy at home, and my parents had been kind to him. It seemed to
me a wrong that Bumps should strike me," said Philip; and he looked, while
telling the story, as if he could cry about this injury now. I hope he has
revenged himself by presenting coals of fire to his wife's relations. But this
day, when he is enjoying good health, and competence, it is not safe to mention
mothers-in-law in his presence. He fumes, shouts, and rages against them, as if
all were like his; and his, I have been told, is a lady perfectly well satisfied
with herself and her conduct in this world; and as for the next��but our story
does not dare to point so far. It only interests itself about a little clique of
people here below��their griefs, their trials, their weaknesses, their kindly
hearts.
People there are in our history who do not seem to me to have kindly hearts at
all; and yet, perhaps, if a biography could be written from their point of view,
some other novelist might show how Philip and his biographer were a pair of
selfish worldlings unworthy of credit: how uncle and aunt Twysden were most
exemplary people, and so forth. Have I not told you how many people at New York
shook their heads when Philip's name was mentioned, and intimated a strong
opinion that he used his father very ill? When he fell wounded and bleeding,
patron Tregarvan dropped him off his horse, and cousin Ringwood did not look
behind to see how he fared. But these, again, may have had their opinion
regarding our friend, who may have been misrepresented to them��I protest as I
look back at the past portions of this history, I begin to have qualms, and ask
myself whether the folks of whom we have been prattling have had justice done to
them; whether Agnes Twysden is not a suffering martyr justly offended by
Philip's turbulent behaviour, and whether Philip deserves any particular
attention or kindness at all. He is not transcendently clever; he is not
gloriously beautiful. He is not about to illuminate the darkness in which the
peoples grovel, with the flashing emanations of his truth. He sometimes owes
money, which he cannot pay. He slips, stumbles, blunders, brags. Ah! he sins and
repents��pray heaven��of faults, of vanities, of pride, of a thousand
shortcomings! This I say��Ego��as my friend's biographer. Perhaps I do not
understand the other characters round about him so well, and have overlooked a
number of their merits, and caricatured and exaggerated their little defects.
Among the Samaritans who came to Philip's help in these his straits, he loves to
remember the name of J. J., the painter, whom he found sitting with the children