"No, no company." "And how did you get on, you four?" asked Clennam gaily.
"There were five of us," returned his partner. "There was What"s-his-name. He was there." "Who is he?" said Clennam.
"Mr Henry Gowan."
"Ah, to be sure!" cried Clennam with unusual vivacity, "Yes!--I forgot him."
"As I mentioned, you may remember," said Daniel Doyce, "he is always there on Sunday."
"Yes, yes," returned Clennam; "I remember now."
Daniel Doyce, still wiping his forehead, ploddingly repeated. "Yes. He was there, he was there. Oh yes, he was there. And his dog. He was there too."
"Miss Meagles is quite attached to--the--dog," observed Clennam.
"Quite so," a.s.sented his partner. "More attached to the dog than I am to the man."
"You mean Mr--?"
"I mean Mr Gowan, most decidedly," said Daniel Doyce.
There was a gap in the conversation, which Clennam devoted to winding up his watch.
"Perhaps you are a little hasty in your judgment," he said. "Our judgments--I am supposing a general case--"
"Of course," said Doyce.
"Are so liable to be influenced by many considerations, which, almost without our knowing it, are unfair, that it is necessary to keep a guard upon them. For instance, Mr--"
"Gowan," quietly said Doyce, upon whom the utterance of the name almost always devolved.
"Is young and handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a good deal of various kinds of life. It might be difficult to give an unselfish reason for being prepossessed against him."
"Not difficult for me, I think, Clennam," returned his partner. "I see him bringing present anxiety, and, I fear, future sorrow, into my old friend"s house. I see him wearing deeper lines into my old friend"s face, the nearer he draws to, and the oftener he looks at, the face of his daughter. In short, I see him with a net about the pretty and affectionate creature whom he will never make happy." "We don"t know,"
said Clennam, almost in the tone of a man in pain, "that he will not make her happy."
"We don"t know," returned his partner, "that the earth will last another hundred years, but we think it highly probable."
"Well, well!" said Clennam, "we must be hopeful, and we must at least try to be, if not generous (which, in this case, we have no opportunity of being), just. We will not disparage this gentleman, because he is successful in his addresses to the beautiful object of his ambition; and we will not question her natural right to bestow her love on one whom she finds worthy of it."
"Maybe, my friend," said Doyce. "Maybe also, that she is too young and petted, too confiding and inexperienced, to discriminate well."
"That," said Clennam, "would be far beyond our power of correction."
Daniel Doyce shook his head gravely, and rejoined, "I fear so."
"Therefore, in a word," said Clennam, "we should make up our minds that it is not worthy of us to say any ill of Mr Gowan. It would be a poor thing to gratify a prejudice against him. And I resolve, for my part, not to depreciate him."
"I am not quite so sure of myself, and therefore I reserve my privilege of objecting to him," returned the other. "But, if I am not sure of myself, I am sure of you, Clennam, and I know what an upright man you are, and how much to be respected. Good night, MY friend and partner!"
He shook his hand in saying this, as if there had been something serious at the bottom of their conversation; and they separated.
By this time they had visited the family on several occasions, and had always observed that even a pa.s.sing allusion to Mr Henry Gowan when he was not among them, brought back the cloud which had obscured Mr Meagles"s sunshine on the morning of the chance encounter at the Ferry.
If Clennam had ever admitted the forbidden pa.s.sion into his breast, this period might have been a period of real trial; under the actual circ.u.mstances, doubtless it was nothing--nothing.
Equally, if his heart had given entertainment to that prohibited guest, his silent fighting of his way through the mental condition of this period might have been a little meritorious. In the constant effort not to be betrayed into a new phase of the besetting sin of his experience, the pursuit of selfish objects by low and small means, and to hold instead to some high principle of honour and generosity, there might have been a little merit. In the resolution not even to avoid Mr Meagles"s house, lest, in the selfish sparing of himself, he should bring any slight distress upon the daughter through making her the cause of an estrangement which he believed the father would regret, there might have been a little merit. In the modest truthfulness of always keeping in view the greater equality of Mr Gowan"s years and the greater attractions of his person and manner, there might have been a little merit. In doing all this and much more, in a perfectly unaffected way and with a manful and composed constancy, while the pain within him (peculiar as his life and history) was very sharp, there might have been some quiet strength of character. But, after the resolution he had made, of course he could have no such merits as these; and such a state of mind was n.o.body"s--n.o.body"s.
Mr Gowan made it no concern of his whether it was n.o.body"s or somebody"s. He preserved his perfect serenity of manner on all occasions, as if the possibility of Clennam"s presuming to have debated the great question were too distant and ridiculous to be imagined. He had always an affability to bestow on Clennam and an ease to treat him with, which might of itself (in the supposit.i.tious case of his not having taken that sagacious course) have been a very uncomfortable element in his state of mind.
"I quite regret you were not with us yesterday," said Mr Henry Gowan, calling on Clennam the next morning. "We had an agreeable day up the river there."
So he had heard, Arthur said.
"From your partner?" returned Henry Gowan. "What a dear old fellow he is!"
"I have a great regard for him."
"By Jove, he is the finest creature!" said Gowan. "So fresh, so green, trusts in such wonderful things!"
Here was one of the many little rough points that had a tendency to grate on Clennam"s hearing. He put it aside by merely repeating that he had a high regard for Mr Doyce.
"He is charming! To see him mooning along to that time of life, laying down nothing by the way and picking up nothing by the way, is delightful. It warms a man. So unspoilt, so simple, such a good soul!
Upon my life Mr Clennam, one feels desperately worldly and wicked in comparison with such an innocent creature. I speak for myself, let me add, without including you. You are genuine also."
"Thank you for the compliment," said Clennam, ill at ease; "you are too, I hope?"
"So so," rejoined the other. "To be candid with you, tolerably. I am not a great impostor. Buy one of my pictures, and I a.s.sure you, in confidence, it will not be worth the money. Buy one of another man"s--any great professor who beats me hollow--and the chances are that the more you give him, the more he"ll impose upon you. They all do it."
"All painters?"
"Painters, writers, patriots, all the rest who have stands in the market. Give almost any man I know ten pounds, and he will impose upon you to a corresponding extent; a thousand pounds--to a corresponding extent; ten thousand pounds--to a corresponding extent. So great the success, so great the imposition. But what a capital world it is!" cried Gowan with warm enthusiasm. "What a jolly, excellent, lovable world it is!"
"I had rather thought," said Clennam, "that the principle you mention was chiefly acted on by--"
"By the Barnacles?" interrupted Gowan, laughing.
"By the political gentlemen who condescend to keep the Circ.u.mlocution Office."
"Ah! Don"t be hard upon the Barnacles," said Gowan, laughing afresh, "they are darling fellows! Even poor little Clarence, the born idiot of the family, is the most agreeable and most endearing blockhead! And by Jupiter, with a kind of cleverness in him too that would astonish you!"
"It would. Very much," said Clennam, drily.
"And after all," cried Gowan, with that characteristic balancing of his which reduced everything in the wide world to the same light weight, "though I can"t deny that the Circ.u.mlocution Office may ultimately shipwreck everybody and everything, still, that will probably not be in our time--and it"s a school for gentlemen."
"It"s a very dangerous, unsatisfactory, and expensive school to the people who pay to keep the pupils there, I am afraid," said Clennam, shaking his head.
"Ah! You are a terrible fellow," returned Gowan, airily. "I can understand how you have frightened that little donkey, Clarence, the most estimable of moon-calves (I really love him) nearly out of his wits. But enough of him, and of all the rest of them. I want to present you to my mother, Mr Clennam. Pray do me the favour to give me the opportunity."
In n.o.body"s state of mind, there was nothing Clennam would have desired less, or would have been more at a loss how to avoid.
"My mother lives in a most primitive manner down in that dreary red-brick dungeon at Hampton Court," said Gowan. "If you would make your own appointment, suggest your own day for permitting me to take you there to dinner, you would be bored and she would be charmed. Really that"s the state of the case."