Masters of the Novella

by Delphi Classics

  “That I do, sir, as the first man in the city of London, and my managing director.”

  “And so do I,” says Tidd; “and this day fortnight, when I’m of age, I’ll prove my confidence too.”

  “As how?” says I.

  “Why, sir, you must know that I come into — ahem — a considerable property, sir, on the 14th of July, which my father made — in business.”

  “Say at once he was a tailor, Tidd.”

  “He was a tailor, sir, — but what of that? I’ve had a University education, and have the feelings of a gentleman; as much — ay, perhaps, and more, than some members of an effete aristocracy.”

  “Tidd, don’t be severe!” says the Captain, drinking a tenth glass.

  “Well, Mr. Titmarsh, when of age I come into a considerable property; and Mr. Brough has been so good as to say he can get me twelve hundred a year for my twenty thousand pounds, and I have promised to invest them.”

  “In the West Diddlesex, sir?” says I— “in our office?”

  “No, in another company, of which Mr. Brough is director, and quite as good a thing. Mr. Brough is a very old friend of my family, sir, and he has taken a great liking to me; and he says that with my talents I ought to get into Parliament; and then — and then! after I have laid out my patrimony, I may look to matrimony, you see!”

  “Oh, you designing dog!” said the Captain. “When I used to lick you at school, who ever would have thought that I was thrashing a sucking statesman?”

  “Talk away, boys!” said Brough, waking out of his sleep; “I only sleep with half an eye, and hear you all. Yes, you shall get into Parliament, Tidd my man, or my name’s not Brough! You shall have six per cent. for your money, or never believe me! But as for my daughter — ask her, and not me. You, or the Captain, or Titmarsh, may have her, if you can get her. All I ask in a son-in-law is, that he should be, as every one of you is, an honourable and high-minded man!”

  Tidd at this looked very knowing; and as our host sank off to sleep again, pointed archly at his eyebrows, and wagged his head at the Captain.

  “Bah!” says the Captain. “I say what I think; and you may tell Miss Brough if you like.” And so presently this conversation ended, and we were summoned in to coffee. After which the Captain sang songs with Miss Brough; Tidd looked at her and said nothing; I looked at prints, and Mrs. Brough sat knitting stockings for the poor. The Captain was sneering openly at Miss Brough and her affected ways and talk; but in spite of his bullying contemptuous way I thought she seemed to have a great regard for him, and to bear his scorn very meekly.

  At twelve Captain Fizgig went off to his barracks at Knightsbridge, and Tidd and I to our rooms. Next day being Sunday, a great bell woke us at eight, and at nine we all assembled in the breakfast-room, where Mr. Brough read prayers, a chapter, and made an exhortation afterwards, to us and all the members of the household; except the French cook, Monsieur Nontong-paw, whom I could see, from my chair, walking about in the shrubberies in his white night-cap, smoking a cigar.

  Every morning on week-days, punctually at eight, Mr. Brough went through the same ceremony, and had his family to prayers; but though this man was a hypocrite, as I found afterwards, I’m not going to laugh at the family prayers, or say he was a hypocrite because he had them. There are many bad and good men who don’t go through the ceremony at all; but I am sure the good men would be the better for it, and am not called upon to settle the question with respect to the bad ones; and therefore I have passed over a great deal of the religious part of Mr. Brough’s behaviour: suffice it, that religion was always on his lips; that he went to church thrice every Sunday, when he had not a party; and if he did not talk religion with us when we were alone, had a great deal to say upon the subject upon occasions, as I found one day when we had a Quaker and Dissenter party to dine, and when his talk was as grave as that of any minister present. Tidd was not there that day, — for nothing could make him forsake his Byron riband or refrain from wearing his collars turned down; so Tidd was sent with the buggy to Astley’s. “And hark ye, Titmarsh my boy,” said he, “leave your diamond pin upstairs: our friends to-day don’t like such gewgaws; and though for my part I am no enemy to harmless ornaments, yet I would not shock the feelings of those who have sterner opinions. You will see that my wife and Miss Brough consult my wishes in this respect.” And so they did, — for they both came down to dinner in black gowns and tippets; whereas Miss B. had commonly her dress half off her shoulders.

  The Captain rode over several times to see us; and Miss Brough seemed always delighted to see him. One day I met him as I was walking out alone by the river, and we had a long talk together.

  “Mr. Titmarsh,” says he, “from what little I have seen of you, you seem to be an honest straight-minded young fellow; and I want some information that you can give. Tell me, in the first place, if you will — and upon my honour it shall go no farther — about this Insurance Company of yours? You are in the City, and see how affairs are going on. Is your concern a stable one?”

  “Sir,” said I, “frankly then, and upon my honour too, I believe it is. It has been set up only four years, it is true; but Mr. Brough had a great name when it was established, and a vast connection. Every clerk in the office has, to be sure, in a manner, paid for his place, either by taking shares himself, or by his relations taking them. I got mine because my mother, who is very poor, devoted a small sum of money that came to us to the purchase of an annuity for herself and a provision for me. The matter was debated by the family and our attorneys, Messrs. Hodge and Smithers, who are very well known in our part of the country; and it was agreed on all hands that my mother could not do better with her money for all of us than invest it in this way. Brough alone is worth half a million of money, and his name is a host in itself. Nay, more: I wrote the other day to an aunt of mine, who has a considerable sum of money in loose cash, and who had consulted me as to the disposal of it, to invest it in our office. Can I give you any better proof of my opinion of its solvency?”

  “Did Brough persuade you in any way?”

  “Yes, he certainly spoke to me: but he very honestly told me his motives, and tells them to us all as honestly. He says, ‘Gentlemen, it is my object to increase the connection of the office, as much as possible. I want to crush all the other offices in London. Our terms are lower than any office, and we can bear to have them lower, and a great business will come to us that way. But we must work ourselves as well. Every single shareholder and officer of the establishment must exert himself, and bring us customers, — no matter for how little they are engaged — engage them: that is the great point.’ And accordingly our Director makes all his friends and servants shareholders: his very lodge-porter yonder is a shareholder; and he thus endeavours to fasten upon all whom he comes near. I, for instance, have just been appointed over the heads of our gents, to a much better place than I held. I am asked down here, and entertained royally: and why? Because my aunt has three thousand pounds which Mr. Brough wants her to invest with us.”

  “That looks awkward, Mr. Titmarsh.”

  “Not a whit, sir: he makes no disguise of the matter. When the question is settled one way or the other, I don’t believe Mr. Brough will take any further notice of me. But he wants me now. This place happened to fall in just at the very moment when he had need of me; and he hopes to gain over my family through me. He told me as much as we drove down. ‘You are a man of the world, Titmarsh,’ said he; ‘you know that I don’t give you this place because you are an honest fellow, and write a good hand. If I had a lesser bribe to offer you at the moment, I should only have given you that; but I had no choice, and gave you what was in my power.’”

  “That’s fair enough; but what can make Brough so eager for such a small sum as three thousand pounds?”

  “If it had been ten, sir, he would have been not a bit more eager. You don’t know the city of London, and the passion which our great men in the share-market have for increasing their connection. Mr.
Brough, sir, would canvass and wheedle a chimney-sweep in the way of business. See, here is poor Tidd and his twenty thousand pounds. Our Director has taken possession of him just in the same way. He wants all the capital he can lay his hands on.”

  “Yes, and suppose he runs off with the capital?”

  “Mr. Brough, of the firm of Brough and Hoff, sir? Suppose the Bank of England runs off! But here we are at the lodge-gate. Let’s ask Gates, another of Mr. Brough’s victims.” And we went in and spoke to old Gates.

  “Well, Mr. Gates,” says I, beginning the matter cleverly, “you are one of my masters, you know, at the West Diddlesex yonder?”

  “Yees, sure,” says old Gates, grinning. He was a retired servant, with a large family come to him in his old age.

  “May I ask you what your wages are, Mr. Gates, that you can lay by so much money, and purchase shares in our Company?”

  Gates told us his wages; and when we inquired whether they were paid regularly, swore that his master was the kindest gentleman in the world: that he had put two of his daughters into service, two of his sons to charity schools, made one apprentice, and narrated a hundred other benefits that he had received from the family. Mrs. Brough clothed half the children; master gave them blankets and coats in winter, and soup and meat all the year round. There never was such a generous family, sure, since the world began.

  “Well, sir,” said I to the Captain, “does that satisfy you? Mr. Brough gives to these people fifty times as much as he gains from them; and yet he makes Mr. Gates take shares in our Company.”

  “Mr. Titmarsh,” says the Captain, “you are an honest fellow; and I confess your argument sounds well. Now tell me, do you know anything about Miss Brough and her fortune?”

  “Brough will leave her everything — or says so.” But I suppose the Captain saw some particular expression in my countenance, for he laughed and said —

  “I suppose, my dear fellow, you think she’s dear at the price. Well, I don’t know that you are far wrong.”

  “Why, then, if I may make so bold, Captain Fizgig, are you always at her heels?”

  “Mr. Titmarsh,” says the Captain, “I owe twenty thousand pounds;” and he went back to the house directly, and proposed for her.

  I thought this rather cruel and unprincipled conduct on the gentleman’s part; for he had been introduced to the family by Mr. Tidd, with whom he had been at school, and had supplanted Tidd entirely in the great heiress’s affections. Brough stormed, and actually swore at his daughter (as the Captain told me afterwards) when he heard that the latter had accepted Mr. Fizgig; and at last, seeing the Captain, made him give his word that the engagement should be kept secret for a few months. And Captain F. only made a confidant of me, and the mess, as he said: but this was after Tidd had paid his twenty thousand pounds over to our governor, which he did punctually when he came of age. The same day, too, he proposed for the young lady, and I need not say was rejected. Presently the Captain’s engagement began to be whispered about: all his great relations, the Duke of Doncaster, the Earl of Cinqbars, the Earl of Crabs, &c. came and visited the Brough family; the Hon. Henry Ringwood became a shareholder in our Company, and the Earl of Crabs offered to be. Our shares rose to a premium; our Director, his lady, and daughter were presented at Court; and the great West Diddlesex Association bid fair to be the first Assurance Office in the kingdom.

  A very short time after my visit to Fulham, my dear aunt wrote to me to say that she had consulted with her attorneys, Messrs. Hodge and Smithers, who strongly recommended that she should invest the sum as I advised. She had the sum invested, too, in my name, paying me many compliments upon my honesty and talent; of which, she said, Mr. Brough had given her the most flattering account. And at the same time my aunt informed me that at her death the shares should be my own. This gave me a great weight in the Company, as you may imagine. At our next annual meeting, I attended in my capacity as a shareholder, and had great pleasure in hearing Mr. Brough, in a magnificent speech, declare a dividend of six per cent., that we all received over the counter.

  “You lucky young scoundrel!” said Brough to me; “do you know what made me give you your place?”

  “Why, my aunt’s money, to be sure, sir,” said I.

  “No such thing. Do you fancy I cared for those paltry three thousand pounds? I was told you were nephew of Lady Drum; and Lady Drum is grandmother of Lady Jane Preston; and Mr. Preston is a man who can do us a world of good. I knew that they had sent you venison, and the deuce knows what; and when I saw Lady Jane at my party shake you by the hand, and speak to you so kindly, I took all Abednego’s tales for gospel. That was the reason you got the place, mark you, and not on account of your miserable three thousand pounds. Well, sir, a fortnight after you were with us at Fulham, I met Preston in the House, and made a merit of having given the place to his cousin. ‘Confound the insolent scoundrel!’ said he; ‘he my cousin! I suppose you take all old Drum’s stories for true? Why, man, it’s her mania: she never is introduced to a man but she finds out a cousinship, and would not fail of course with that cur of a Titmarsh!’ ‘Well,’ said I, laughing, ‘that cur has got a good place in consequence, and the matter can’t be mended.’ So you see,” continued our Director, “that you were indebted for your place, not to your aunt’s money, but—”

  “But to my aunt’s diamond pin!”

  “Lucky rascal!” said Brough, poking me in the side and going out of the way. And lucky, in faith, I thought I was.

  CHAPTER VIII

  RELATES THE HAPPIEST DAY OF SAMUEL TITMARSH’S LIFE

  I don’t know how it was that in the course of the next six months Mr. Roundhand, the actuary, who had been such a profound admirer of Mr. Brough and the West Diddlesex Association, suddenly quarrelled with both, and taking his money out of the concern, he disposed of his 5,000l. worth of shares to a pretty good profit, and went away, speaking everything that was evil both of the Company and the Director.

  Mr. Highmore now became secretary and actuary, Mr. Abednego was first clerk, and your humble servant was second in the office at a salary of 250l. a year. How unfounded were Mr. Roundhand’s aspersions of the West Diddlesex appeared quite clearly at our meeting in January, 1823, when our Chief Director, in one of the most brilliant speeches ever heard, declared that the half-yearly dividend was 4l. per cent., at the rate of 8l. per cent. per annum; and I sent to my aunt 120l. sterling as the amount of the interest of the stock in my name.

  My excellent aunt, Mrs. Hoggarty, delighted beyond measure, sent me back 10l. for my own pocket, and asked me if she had not better sell Slopperton and Squashtail, and invest all her money in this admirable concern.

  On this point I could not surely do better than ask the opinion of Mr. Brough. Mr. B. told me that shares could not be had but at a premium; but on my representing that I knew of 5,000l. worth in the market at par, he said— “Well, if so, he would like a fair price for his, and would not mind disposing of 5,000l. worth, as he had rather a glut of West Diddlesex shares, and his other concerns wanted feeding with ready money.” At the end of our conversation, of which I promised to report the purport to Mrs. Hoggarty, the Director was so kind as to say that he had determined on creating a place of private secretary to the Managing Director, and that I should hold that office with an additional salary of 150l.

  I had 250l. a year, Miss Smith had 70l. per annum to her fortune. What had I said should be my line of conduct whenever I could realise 300l. a year?

  Gus of course, and all the gents in our office through him, knew of my engagement with Mary Smith. Her father had been a commander in the navy and a very distinguished officer; and though Mary, as I have said, only brought me a fortune of 70l. a year, and I, as everybody said, in my present position in the office and the City of London, might have reasonably looked out for a lady with much more money, yet my friends agreed that the connection was very respectable, and I was content: as who would not have been with such a darling as Mary? I am sure, for my part
, I would not have taken the Lord Mayor’s own daughter in place of Mary, even with a plum to her fortune.

  Mr. Brough of course was made aware of my approaching marriage, as of everything else relating to every clerk in the office; and I do believe Abednego told him what we had for dinner every day. Indeed, his knowledge of our affairs was wonderful.

  He asked me how Mary’s money was invested. It was in the three per cent. consols — 2,333l. 6s. 8d.

  “Remember,” says he, “my lad, Mrs. Sam Titmarsh that is to be may have seven per cent. for her money at the very least, and on better security than the Bank of England; for is not a Company of which John Brough is the head better than any other company in England?” and to be sure I thought he was not far wrong, and promised to speak to Mary’s guardians on the subject before our marriage. Lieutenant Smith, her grandfather, had been at the first very much averse to our union. (I must confess that, one day finding me alone with her, and kissing, I believe, the tips of her little fingers, he had taken me by the collar and turned me out of doors.) But Sam Titmarsh, with a salary of 250l. a year, a promised fortune of 150l. more, and the right-hand man of Mr. John Brough of London, was a very different man from Sam the poor clerk, and the poor clergyman’s widow’s son; and the old gentleman wrote me a kind letter enough, and begged me to get him six pairs of lamb’s-wool stockings and four ditto waistcoats from Romanis’, and accepted them too as a present from me when I went down in June — in happy June of 1823 — to fetch my dear Mary away.

  Mr. Brough was likewise kindly anxious about my aunt’s Slopperton and Squashtail property, which she had not as yet sold, as she talked of doing; and, as Mr. B. represented, it was a sin and a shame that any person in whom he took such interest, as he did in all the relatives of his dear young friend, should only have three per cent. for her money, when she could have eight elsewhere. He always called me Sam now, praised me to the other young men (who brought the praises regularly to me), said there was a cover always laid for me at Fulham, and repeatedly took me thither. There was but little company when I went; and M’Whirter used to say he only asked me on days when he had his vulgar acquaintances. But I did not care for the great people, not being born in their sphere; and indeed did not much care for going to the house at all. Miss Belinda was not at all to my liking. After her engagement with Captain Fizgig, and after Mr. Tidd had paid his 20,000l. and Fizgig’s great relations had joined in some of our Director’s companies, Mr. Brough declared he believed that Captain Fizgig’s views were mercenary, and put him to the proof at once, by saying that he must take Miss Brough without a farthing, or not have her at all. Whereupon Captain Fizgig got an appointment in the colonies, and Miss Brough became more ill-humoured than ever. But I could not help thinking she was rid of a bad bargain, and pitying poor Tidd, who came back to the charge again more love-sick than ever, and was rebuffed pitilessly by Miss Belinda. Her father plainly told Tidd, too, that his visits were disagreeable to Belinda, and though he must always love and value him, he begged him to discontinue his calls at the Rookery. Poor fellow! he had paid his 20,000l. away for nothing! for what was six per cent. to him compared to six per cent. and the hand of Miss Belinda Brough?