"The Professor" by Charlotte Brontë | CHAPTER 4 and CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER IV. No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of his profession, and every man worthy of the name will row long against wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, I am baffled, and submits to be floated passively back to land. From the first week of my residence in the town I felt my occupation irksome. The thing itself, the work of copying and translating business letters, was a dry and tedious task enough, but had that been all, I should long have borne with the nuisance. I am not of an impatient nature, and influenced by the double desire of getting my living and justifying to myself and others the resolution I had taken to become a tradesman, I should have endured in silence the rust and cramp of my best faculties. I should not have whispered even inwardly that I longed for liberty. I should have pent in every sigh by which my heart might have ventured to intimate its distress under the closeness, smoke, monotony, and joyless tumult of Big Ben close, and its panting desire for freer and fresher scenes. I should have set up the image of duty, the fetish of perseverance in my small bedroom at Mrs. King's lodgings, and they too should have been my household gods from which my darling, my cherished in secret imagination, the tender and the mighty, should never, either by softness or strength, have severed me. But this was not all. The antipathy which had sprung up between myself and my employer, striking deeper root and spreading denser shade daily, excluded me from every glimpse of the sunshine of life, and I began to feel like a plant growing in humid darkness out of the slimy walls of a well. Antipathy is the only word which can express the feeling Edward Crimsworth had for me—a feeling, in a great measure, involuntary, and which was liable to be excited by every the most trifling movement, look, or word of mine. My southern accent annoyed him. The degree of education evinced in my language irritated him. My punctuality, industry, and accuracy fixed his dislike, and gave it the high flavour and poignant relish of envy. He feared that I, too, should one day make a successful tradesman. Had I been in anything inferior to him, he would not have hated me so thoroughly, but I knew all that he knew, and, what was worse, he suspected that I kept the padlock of silence on mental wealth in which he was no sharer. If he could have once placed me in a ridiculous or mortifying position, he would have forgiven me much, but I was guarded by three faculties—caution, tact, observation, and prowling and prying as was Edward's malignity, it could never baffle the lynx eyes of these my natural sentinels. Day by day did his malice watch my tact, hoping it would sleep, and prepared to steal snake-like on its slumber. But tact, if it be genuine, never sleeps. I had received my first quarter's wages, and was returning to my lodgings, possessed heart and soul with the pleasant feeling that the master who had paid me grudged every penny of that hard-earned pittance. I had long ceased to regard Mr. Crimsworth as my brother. He was a hard, grinding master. He wished to be an inexorable tyrant. That was all. Thoughts, not varied but strong, occupied my mind. Two voices spoke within me again and again. They uttered the same monotonous phrases. One said, William, your life is intolerable. The other, What can you do to alter it? I walked fast, for it was a cold, frosty night in January. As I approached my lodgings I turned from a general view of my affairs to the particular speculation as to whether my fire would be out. Looking towards the window of my sitting-room, I saw no cheering red gleam. That slut of a servant has neglected it as usual, said I, and I shall see nothing but pale ashes if I go in. It is a fine starlight night. I will walk a little farther. It was a fine night, and the streets were dry and even clean for this town. There was a crescent curve of moonlight to be seen by the parish church tower, and hundreds of stars shone keenly bright in all quarters of the sky. Unconsciously I steered my course towards the country. I had got into Grove Street, and began to feel the pleasure of seeing dim trees at the extremity round a suburban house, when a person, leaning over the iron gate of one of the small gardens which front the neat dwellings in this street, addressed me as I was hurrying with quick stride past. What the deuce is the hurry? Just so must Lot have let Sodom when he expected fire to pour down upon it out of burning brass and clouds. I stopped short, and looked towards the speaker. I smelt the fragrance, and saw the red spark of a cigar, the dusk outline of a man, too, bent towards me over the wicket. You see, I am meditating in the field at eventide, continued this shade. God knows it's cool work, especially as instead of Rebecca on a camel's hump, with bracelets on her arms, and a ring in her nose, fate sends me only a counting house clerk in a grey tweed wrapper. The voice was familiar to me. Its second utterance enabled me to seize the speaker's identity. Mr. Hunston, good evening. Good evening indeed, yes, but you would have passed me without recognition if I had not been so civil as to speak first. I did not know you. A famous excuse. You ought to have known me. I knew you, though you were going ahead like a steam engine. Are the police after you? It wouldn't be worth their while. I'm not of consequence enough to attract them. Alas, poor shepherd, alack and well-a-day! What a theme for regret, and how down in the mouth you must be, judging from the sound of your voice! But since you're not running from the police, from whom are you running, the devil? On the contrary, I'm going to post to him. That is well. You're just in luck. This is Tuesday evening. There are scores of market gigs and carts returning to Dinneford to-night, and he, or some of his, have a seat in all regularly. So if you'll step in and sit half an hour in my bachelor's parlour, you may catch him as he passes without much trouble. I think, though, you'd better let him alone to-night. He'll have so many customers to serve. Tuesday is his busy day in this town, and Dinneford—come in at all events." He swung the wicked gate open as he spoke. "'Do you really wish me to go in?' I asked. "'As you please. I'm alone. Your company for an hour or two would be agreeable to me, but if you don't choose to favour me so far, I'll not press the point. I hate to bore anyone.' It suited me to accept the invitation as it suited Hunsden to give it. I passed through the gate, and followed him to the front door which he opened. Thence we traversed a passage, and entered his parlour, the door being shut. He pointed me to an armchair by the hearth. I sat down and glanced round me. It was a comfortable room, at once snug and handsome. The bright crate was filled with a genuine fire, red, clear, and generous. No penurious South of England embers heaped in the corner of a grate. On the table a shaded lamp diffused around a soft, pleasant, and equal light. The furniture was almost luxurious for a young bachelor, comprising a couch and two very easy chairs. Bookshelves filled the recesses on each side of the mantelpiece. They were well furnished and arranged with perfect order. The neatness of the room suited my taste. I hate irregular and slovenly habits. From what I saw, I concluded that Hunsden's ideas on that point corresponded with my own. While he removed from the centre table to the sideboard a few pamphlets and periodicals, I ran my eye along the shelves of the bookcase nearest me. French and German works predominated. The old French dramatists, sundry modern authors—Thiers, Villemaine, Paul de Caucque, Georges Sein, Eugene Suet—in German, Goethe, Schiller, Cherokee, Jean-Paul Richter. In English there were works on political economy. I examined no further, for Mr. Hunsden himself recalled my attention. "'You shall have something,' said he, 'for you ought to feel disposed for refreshment after walking nobody knows how far on such a Canadian night as this. But it shall not be brandy and water, and it shall not be a bottle of port nor ditto of sherry. I keep no such poison. I have rye and wine for my own drinking, and you may choose between that and coffee.' Here again Hunsden suited me. If there was one generally received practice I abhorred more than another, it was the habitual imbibing of spirits and strong wines. I had, however, no fancy for his acid German nectar, but I liked coffee, so I responded. "'Give me some coffee, Mr. Hunsden.' I perceived my answer pleased him. He had doubtless expected to see a chilling effect produced by his steady announcement that he would give me neither wine nor spirits. He just shot one searching glance at my face to ascertain whether my cordiality was genuine or a mere feint of politeness. I smiled, because I quite understood him, and, while I honoured his conscientious firmness, I was amused at his mistrust. He seemed satisfied, rang the bell, and ordered coffee, which was presently brought, for himself a bunch of grapes and a half a pint of something sour sufficed. My coffee was excellent. I told him so, and expressed the shuddering pity with which his anchorite fare inspired me. He did not answer, and I scarcely think heard my remark. At that moment one of those momentary eclipses I before alluded to had come over his face, extinguishing his smile, and replacing, by an abstracted and alienated look, the customarily shrewd bantering glance of his eye. I employed the interval of silence in a rapid scrutiny of his physiognomy. I had never observed him closely before, and, as my sight is very short, I had gathered only a vague general idea of his appearance. I was surprised now on examination to perceive how small and even feminine were his lineaments. His tall figure, long and dark locks, his voice and general bearing, had impressed me with the notion of something powerful and massive. Not at all. My own features were cast in a harsher and squarer mould than his. I discerned that there would be contrasts between his inward and outward man, contentions too, for I suspected his soul had more of will and ambition than his body had of fibre and muscle. Perhaps in these incompatibilities of the physique with the morale lay the secret of that fitful gloom. He would, but could not, and the athletic mind scowled scorn on its more fragile companion. As to his good looks, I should have liked to have a woman's opinion on that subject. It seemed to me that his face might produce the same effect on a lady that a very piquant and interesting, though scarcely pretty, female face would on a man. I have mentioned his dark locks. They were brushed sideways above a white and sufficiently expansive forehead. His cheek had a rather hectic freshness. His features might have done well on canvas, but indifferently in marble. They were plastic. Character had set a stamp upon each. Expression recast them at her pleasure, and strange metamorphoses she wrought, giving him now the mien of a morose bull, and anon that of an arch and mischievous girl. More frequently the two semblances were blunt, and a queer composite countenance they made. Starting from his silent fit, he began,— William, what a fool you are to live in those dismal lodgings of Mrs. King's when you might take rooms here in Grove Street and have a garden like me. I should be too far from the mill. What of that? It would do you good to walk there and back two or three times a day. Besides, are you such a fossil that you never wish to see a flower or a green leaf? I am no fossil. What are you, then? You sit at that desk in Crimsworth Counting-House, day by day and week by week, scraping with a pen on paper just like an automaton. You never get up. You never say you are tired. You never ask for a holiday. You never take change or relaxation. You give way to no excess of an evening. You neither keep wild company nor indulge in strong drink. Do you, Mr. Hunsdon? Don't think to pose me with short questions. Your case and mine are diametrically different, and it is nonsense attempting to draw a parallel. I say that when a man endures patiently, what ought to be unendurable, he is a fossil. Whence do you acquire the knowledge of my patience? Why, man, do you suppose you are a mystery? The other night you seemed surprised at my knowing to what family you belonged. Now you find subject for wonderment in my calling you patient. What do you think I do with my eyes and ears? I have been in your counting-house more than once when Crimsworth has treated you like a dog, called for a book, for instance, and when you gave him the wrong one, or what he chose to consider the wrong one, flung it back almost in your face, desired you to shut or open the door as if you had been as flunky, to say nothing of your position at the party about a month ago, where you had neither a place nor a partner, but hovered about like a poor shabby hanger-on. And how patient you were under each and all of these circumstances! Well, Mr. Hunsdon, what then? I can hardly tell you what then. The conclusion to be drawn as to your character depends upon the nature of the motives which guide your conduct. If you are patient because you expect to make something eventually out of Crimsworth, not withstanding his tyranny, or perhaps by means of it, you are what the world calls an interested and mercenary, but may be a very wise fellow. If you are patient because you think it a duty to meet insult with submission, you are an essential sap, and in no shape the man for my money. If you are patient because your nature is phlegmatic, flat, inexcitable, and that you cannot get up to the pitch of resistance, why, God made you to be crushed, and lie down by all means, and lie flat, and let Juggernaut ride well over you. Mr. Hunsdon's eloquence was not, it will be perceived, of the smooth and oily order. As he spoke he pleased me ill. I seemed to recognise in him one of those characters who, sensitive enough themselves, are selfishly relentless towards the sensitiveness of others. Moreover, though he was neither like Crimsworth nor Lord Tyndale, yet he was acrid, and, I suspected, overbearing in his way. There was a tone of despotism in the urgency of the varied reproaches by which he aimed at goading the oppressed into rebellion against the oppressor. Looking at him still more fixedly than I had done yet, I saw written in his eye and mien a resolution to arrogate to himself a freedom so unlimited that it might often trench on the just liberty of his neighbours. I rapidly ran over these thoughts, and then I laughed a low and involuntary laugh, moved thereto by a slight inward revelation of the inconsistency of man. It was as I thought. Hunsdon had expected me to take with calm his incorrect and offensive surmises, his bitter and haughty taunts, and himself was chafed by a laugh scarce louder than a whisper. His brow darkened, his thin nostril dilated a little. Yes, he began. I told you that you were an aristocrat, and who but an aristocrat would laugh such a laugh as that, and look such a look? A laugh frigidly jeering, a look lazily mutinous, gentlemanlike irony, patrician resentment. What a nobleman you would have made, William Crimsworth! You are cut out for one. Pity fortune has balked nature. Look at the features, figure even to the hands, distinction all over, ugly distinction. Now if you'd only an estate and mansion, and a park, and a title, how you could play the exclusive, maintain the rights of your class, train your tenetry and habits of respect to the peerage, oppose at every step the advancing power of the people, support your rotten order, and be ready for its sake to wade knee-deep in Cheryl's blood. As it is, you've no power. You can do nothing. You're wrecked and stranded on the shores of commerce, forced into collision with practical men with whom you cannot cope, for you'll never be a tradesman." The first part of Hunston's speech moved me not at all, or, if it did, it was only to wonder at the perversion into which prejudice had twisted his judgment of my character. The concluding sentence, however, not only moved, but shook me. The blow it gave was a severe one, because truth wielded the weapon. If I smiled now, it was only in disdain of myself. Hunston saw his advantage. He followed it up. "'You'll make nothing by trade,' continued he, "'nothing more than the crust of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you now live. Your only chance of getting a competency lies in marrying a rich widow, or running away with an heiress.' "'I leave such shifts to be put in practice by those who devise them,' said I, rising. "'And even that is hopeless,' he went on coolly. "'What widow would have you? Much less what heiress. You're not bold and venturesome enough for the one, nor handsome and fascinating enough for the other. You think, perhaps, you look intelligent and polished. Carry your intellect and refinement to market, and tell me in a private note what prices bid for them.' Mr. Hunston had taken his tone for the night. The string he struck was out of tune. He would finger no other. Averse to discord of which I had enough every day, and all day long, I concluded at last that silence and solitude were preferable to jarring converse. I bade him good-night. "'What? Are you going, lad? Well, good-night. You'll find the door.' And he sat still in front of the fire while I left the room and the house. I had got a good weigh on my return to my lodgings before I found that I was walking very fast and breathing very hard, and that my nails were almost stuck into the palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were set fast. On making this discovery I relaxed both my pace, fists, and jaws, but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through my mind to slacken their tide. Why did I make myself a tradesman? Why did I enter Hunston's house this evening? Why at dawn to-morrow must I repair to Crimsworth Mill? All that night did I ask myself these questions, and all that night fiercely demanded of my soul an answer. I got no sleep. My head burned. My feet froze. At last the factory bells rang, and I sprang from my bed with other slaves. CHAPTER V. There is a climax to everything, to every state of feeling, as well as to every position in life. I turned this truism over in my mind as, in the frosty dawn of a January morning, I hurried down the steep and now icy street which descended from Mrs. King's to the close. The factory workpeople had preceded me by nearly an hour, and the mill was all lighted up and in full operation when I reached it. I repaired to my post in the counting-house as usual. The fire there but just lit, as yet only smoked. Clayton had not yet arrived. I shut the door and sat down at my desk. My hands, recently washed in half-frozen water, were still numb. I could not write till they had regained vitality, so I went on thinking, and still the theme of my thoughts was the climax. Self-dissatisfaction troubled exceedingly the current of my meditations. "'Come, William Crimsworth,' said my conscience, or whatever it is that within ourselves takes ourselves the task, "'come, get a clear notion of what you would have, or what you would not have.' "'You talk of a climax. Pray, has your endurance reached its climax? It is not four months old. What a fine resolute fellow you imagined yourself to be when you told Tyndale you would tread in your father's steps, and a pretty treading you are likely to make of it. How well you like this town! Just at this moment how redolent of pleasant associations are its streets, its shops, its warehouses, its factories! How the prospect of this day cheers you! Letter-copying till noon, solitary dinner at your lodgings, letter-copying till evening. Solitude! For you neither find pleasure in Brown's, nor Smith's, nor Nicholl's, nor Eccle's company. And as to Hunsdon, you fancied there was pleasure to be derived from his society. He! How did you like the taste you had of him last night? Was it sweet? Yet he is a talented and original-minded man, and even he does not like you. Your self-respect defies you to like him. He has always seen you to disadvantage. He always will see you to disadvantage. Your positions are unequal, and were they on the same level your minds could not assimilate. Never hope, then, to gather the honey of friendship out of that thorn-guarded plant. Hello, Grimsworth. Where are your thoughts tending? You leave the recollection of Hunsdon as a bee would a rock, as a bird a desert, and your aspirations spread eager wings towards a land of visions where, now, in advancing daylight in this town—daylight!—you dare to dream of congeniality, repose, union. Those three you will never meet in this world. They are angels. The souls of just men made perfect may encounter them in heaven, but your soul will never be made perfect. Eight o'clock strikes. All hands are thawed. Get to work. Work? Why should I work? said I solemnly. I cannot please, though I toil like a slave. Work! Work! reiterated the inward voice. I may work. It will do no good, I growled. But nevertheless, I drew out a packet of letters, and commenced my task—task thankless and bitter as that of the Israelite crawling over the sun-baked fields of Egypt in search of straw and stubble wherewith to accomplish his tale of bricks. About ten o'clock I heard Mr. Crimsworth's gig turn into the yard, and in a minute or two he entered the counting-house. It was his custom to glance his eye at Staten and myself, to hang up his Macintosh, stand a minute with his back to the fire, and then walk out. Today he did not deviate from his usual habits. The only difference was that, when he looked at me, his brow, instead of being merely hard, was surly. His eye, instead of being cold, was fierce. He studied me a minute or two longer than usual, but went out in silence. Twelve o'clock arrived. The bell rang for a suspension of labour. The work-people went off to their dinners. Staten too departed, desiring me to lock the counting-house door and take the key with me. I was tying up a bundle of papers and putting them in their place, preparatory to closing my desk, when Crimsworth reappeared at the door, and, entering, closed it behind him. "'You'll stay here a minute,' said he, in a deep, brutal voice, while his nostrils distended and his eye shot a spark of sinister fire. Along with Edward, I remembered our relationship, and, remembering that, forgot the difference of position. I put away deference and careful forms of speech. I answered with simple brevity. "'It is time to go home,' I said, turning the key in my desk. "'You'll stay here,' he reiterated. "'And take your hand off that key. Leave it in the lock.' "'Why?' asked I. "'What cause is there for changing my usual plans?' "'Do as I order,' was the answer, and no questions. You are my servant. Obey me. What have you been about?' He was going on in the same breath, when an abrupt pause announced that rage had for the moment caught the better of articulation. "'You may look, if you wish to know,' I replied. "'There is the open desk. There are the papers.' "'Confound your insolence! What have you been about?' "'Your work, and have done it well. "'Come, Edward Crimsworth, enough of this. It is time you and I wound up accounts. I have now given your service three months' trial, and I find it the most nauseous slavery under the sun. Seek another clerk. I stay no longer.' "'What I do, you dare to give me notice? Stop at least for your wages!' He took down the heavy gig-whip hanging beside his Macintosh. I permitted myself to laugh with a degree of scorn, and I took no pains to temper or hide. His fury boiled up, and when he had sworn half a dozen vulgar, impious oaths, without, however, venturing to lift the whip, he continued. "'I've found you out, and know you thoroughly, you mean, whining, lickspittle. What have you been saying all over town about me? Answer me that.' "'You! I have neither inclination nor temptation to talk about you. You lie. It is your practice to talk about me. It is your constant habit to make public complaint of the treatment you receive at my hands. You have gone and told it far and near that I give you low wages and knock you about like a dog. I wish you were a dog. I'd set to this minute and never stir from the spot till I'd cut every strip of flesh from your bones with this whip.' He flourished his tool. The end of the lash just touched my forehead. A warm, excited thrill ran through my veins. My blood seemed to give abound, and then raced fast and hot along its channels. I got up nimbly, came round to where he stood, and faced him. "'Down with your whip,' said I, and explain this instant what you mean. Sirrah, to whom are you speaking? To you. There is no one else present, I think. You say I have been calumniating you, complaining of your low wages and bad treatment. Give your grounds for these assertions.' dignity, and when I sternly demanded an explanation, he gave one in a loud, scolding voice. "'Grounds you shall have them. And turn to the light, that I may see your brazen face blush black when you hear yourself prove to be a liar and a hypocrite. At a public meeting in the town hall yesterday, I had the pleasure of hearing myself insulted by the speaker opposed to me in the question under discussion, by allusions to my private affairs, by cant about monsters without natural affection, family despots, and such trash, and when I rose to answer, I was met by a shout from the filthy mob, where the mention of your name enabled me at once to detect the quarter in which this base attack had originated. When I looked round, I saw that treacherous villain, Hunston, acting as Fugerman. I detected you in close conversation with Hunston at my house a month ago, and I know that you were at Hunston's rooms last night. Deny it if you dare.' "'Oh, I shall not deny it. And if Hunston hounded on the people to hiss you, he did quite right. You deserve popular execration. For a worse man, a harder master, a more brutal brother than you are, has seldom existed.' "'Sirrah! Sirrah!' reiterated Crimsworth, and to complete his apostrophe, he cracked the whip straight over my head. A minute sufficed to wrest it from him, break it in two pieces, and throw it under the grate. He made a headlong rush at me, which I evaded, and said, Touch me, and I'll have you up before the nearest magistrate. Men like Crimsworth, if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate something of their exorbitant insolence. He had no mind to be brought before a magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I said. After an odd and long stare at me, at once bull-like and amazed, he seemed to bethink himself that, after all, his money gave him sufficient superiority over a beggar like me, and that he had in his hands a surer and more dignified mode of revenge than the somewhat hazardous one of personal chastisement. "'Take your hat,' said he. "'Take what belongs to you, and go out that door. Get away to your parish, you pauper. Beg, steal, starve, get transported, do what you like, but at your peril venture again into my sight. If ever I hear of your setting foot on an inch of ground belonging to me, I'll hire a man to cane you. It is not likely you'll have the chance. Once off your premises, what temptation can I have to return to them? I leave a prison. I leave a tyrant. I leave what is worse than the worst that can lie before me, so no fear of my coming back.' "'Go, or I'll make you!' exclaimed Crimsworth. I walked deliberately to my desk, took out such of its contents as were my own property, put them in my pocket, locked the desk, and placed the key on the top. "'What are you abstracting from that desk?' demanded the mill-owner. 'Leave all behind in its place, or I'll send for a policeman to search you.' "'Look sharp about it, then,' said I, and I took down my hat, drew on my gloves, and walked leisurely out of the counting-house, walked out of it to enter no more. I recollect that when the mill-bell rang the dinner-hour before Mr. Crimsworth entered, and the scene above related took place, I had had rather a sharp appetite, and had been waiting somewhat impatiently to hear the signal of feeding-time. I forgot it now, however. The image of potatoes and roast mutton were effaced from my mind by the stir and tumult which the transaction of the last half-hour had there excited. I only thought of walking, that the action of my muscles might harmonise with the action of my nerves, and walk I did, fast and far. How could I do otherwise? A load was lifted off my heart. I felt light and liberated. I got away from Big Ben close, without a breach of resolution, without injury to my self-respect. I had not forced circumstances. Circumstances had freed me. Life was again open to me. No longer was its horizon limited by the high black wall surrounding Crimsworth Mill. Two hours had elapsed before my sensations had so far subsided as to leave me calm enough to remark for what wider and clearer boundaries I had exchanged that sooty girdle. When I did look up, lo! straight before me lay Grovetown, a village of villas about five miles out of town. The short winter day, as I perceived from the far-declined sun, was already approaching its close. A chill frost mist was rising from the river on which the town stands, and along whose banks the road I had taken lay. It dimmed the earth, but did not obscure the clear icy blue of the January sky. There was a great stillness near and far. The time of the day favoured tranquillity, as the people were all employed within doors. The hour of evening, a release from the factories not yet being arrived, a sound of full flowing water alone pervaded the air, for the river was deep and abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow. I stood a while, leaning over a wall, and looking down at the current. I watched the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear and permanent impression of the scene, and treasure it for future years. Grovetown church clock struck four. Looking up, I beheld the last of that day's sun, glinting red through the leafless boughs of some very old oak trees surrounding the church. Its light coloured and characterised the picture as I wished. I paused yet a moment till the sweet, slow sound of the bell had quite died out of the air. Then, ear, eye, and feeling satisfied, I quitted the wall, and once more turned my face towards the town.