The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope

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There had been no concealment between the young men as to their
feelings. Norman had told his friend scores of times that it was
the first wish of his heart to marry Gertrude Woodward; and had
told him, moreover, what were his grounds for hope, and what his
reasons for despair.

'She is as proud as a queen,' he had once said as he was rowing
from Hampton to Searle's Wharf, and lay on his oars as the
falling tide carried his boat softly past the green banks of
Richmond--'she is as proud as a queen, and yet as timid as a
fawn. She lets me tell her that I love her, but she will not say
a word to me in reply; as for touching her in the way of a
caress, I should as soon think of putting my arm round a
goddess.'

'And why not put your arms round a goddess?' said Alaric, who was
perhaps a little bolder than his friend, and a little less
romantic. To this Harry answered nothing, but, laying his back to
his work, swept on past the gardens of Kew, and shot among the
wooden dangers of Putney Bridge.

'I wish you could bring yourself to make up to Linda,' said he,
resting again from his labours; 'that would make the matter so
much easier.'

'Bring myself!' said Alaric; 'what you mean is, that you wish I
could bring Linda to consent to be made up to.'

'I don't think you would have much difficulty,' said Harry,
finding it much easier to answer for Linda than for her sister;
'but perhaps you don't admire her?'

'I think her by far the prettier of the two,' said Alaric.

'That's nonsense,' said Harry, getting rather red in the face,
and feeling rather angry.

'Indeed I do; and so, I am convinced, would most men. You need
not murder me, man. You want me to make up to Linda, and surely
it will be better that I should admire my own wife than yours.'

'Oh! you may admire whom you like; but to say that she is
prettier than Gertrude--why, you know, it is nonsense.'

'Very well, my dear fellow; then to oblige you, I'll fall in love
with Gertrude.'

'I know you won't do that,' said Harry, 'for you are not so very
fond of each other; but, joking apart, I do wish so you would
make up to Linda.'

'Well, I will when _my_ aunt leaves _me_ L200 a year.'

There was no answering this; so the two men changed the
conversation as they walked up together from the boat wharf to
the office of the Weights and Measures.

It was just at this time that fortune and old Mr. Tudor, of the
Shropshire parsonage, brought Charley Tudor to reside with our
two heroes. For the first month, or six weeks, Charley was
ruthlessly left by his companions to get through his Sundays as
best he could. It is to be hoped that he spent them in divine
worship; but it may, we fear, be surmised with more probability,
that he paid his devotions at the shrine of some very inferior
public-house deity in the neighbourhood of Somerset House. As a
matter of course, both Norman and Tudor spoke much of their new
companion to the ladies at Surbiton Cottage, and as by degrees
they reported somewhat favourably of his improved morals, Mrs.
Woodward, with a woman's true kindness, begged that he might be
brought down to Hampton.

'I am afraid you will find him very rough,' said his cousin
Alaric.

'At any rate you will not find him a fool,' said Norman, who was
always the more charitable of the two.

'Thank God for that!' said Mrs. Woodward,' and if he will come
next Saturday, let him by all means do so. Pray give my
compliments to him, and tell him how glad I shall be to see him.'

And thus was this wild wolf to be led into the sheep-cote; this
infernal navvy to be introduced among the angels of Surbiton
Cottage. Mrs. Woodward thought that she had a taste for
reclaiming reprobates, and was determined to try her hand on
Charley Tudor.

Charley went, and his debut was perfectly successful. We have
hitherto only looked on the worst side of his character; but bad
as his character was, it had a better side. He was good-natured
in the extreme, kind-hearted and affectionate; and, though too
apt to be noisy and even boisterous when much encouraged, was not
without a certain innate genuine modesty, which the knowledge of
his own iniquities had rather increased than blunted; and, as
Norman had said of him, he was no fool. His education had not
been good, and he had done nothing by subsequent reading to make
up for this deficiency; but he was well endowed with mother-wit,
and owed none of his deficiencies to nature's churlishness.

He came, and was well received. The girls thought he would surely
get drunk before he left the table, and Mrs. Wood ward feared the
austere precision of her parlourmaid might be offended by some
unworthy familiarity; but no accident of either kind seemed to
occur. He came to the tea-table perfectly sober, and, as far as
Mrs. Woodward could tell, was unaware of the presence of the
parlour-maiden.

On the Sunday morning, Charley went to church, just like a
Christian. Now Mrs. Woodward certainly had expected that he would
have spent those two hours in smoking and attacking the parlour-
maid. He went to church, however, and seemed in no whit astray
there; stood up when others stood up, and sat down when others
sat down. After all, the infernal navvies, bad as they doubtless
were, knew something of the recognized manners of civilized life.

Thus Charley Tudor ingratiated himself at Surbiton Cottage, and
when he left, received a kind intimation from its mistress that
she would be glad to see him again. No day was fixed, and so
Charley could not accompany his cousin and Harry Norman on the
next Saturday; but it was not long before he got another direct
invitation, and so he also became intimate at Hampton. There
could be no danger of any one falling in love with him, for Katie
was still a child.

Things stood thus at Surbiton Cottage when Mrs. Woodward received
a proposition from a relative of her own, which surprised them
all not a little. This was from a certain Captain Cuttwater, who
was a maternal uncle to Mrs. Woodward, and consisted of nothing
less than an offer to come and live with them for the remaining
term of his natural life. Now Mrs. Woodward's girls had seen very
little of their grand-uncle, and what little they had seen had
only taught them to laugh at him. When his name was mentioned in
the family conclave, he was always made the subject of some
little feminine joke; and Mrs. Woodward, though she always took
her uncle's part, did so in a manner that made them feel that he
was fair game for their quizzing.

When the proposal was first enunciated to the girls, they one and
all, for Katie was one of the council, suggested that it should
be declined with many thanks.

'He'll take us all for midshipmen,' said Linda, 'and stop our
rations, and mast-head us whenever we displease him.'

'I am sure he is a cross old hunks, though mamma says he's not,'
said Katie, with all the impudence of spoilt fourteen.

'He'll interfere with every one of our pursuits,' said Gertrude,
more thoughtfully, 'and be sure to quarrel with the young men.'

But Mrs. Woodward, though she had consulted her daughters,
had arguments of her own in favour of Captain Cuttwater's
proposition, which she had not yet made known to them. Good-
humoured and happy as she always was, she had her cares in the
world. Her income was only L400 a year, and that, now that the
Income Tax had settled down on it, was barely sufficient for her
modest wants. A moiety of this died with her, and the remainder
would be but a poor support for her three daughters, if at the
time of her death it should so chance that she should leave them
in want of support. She had always regarded Captain Cuttwater as
a probable source of future aid. He was childless and unmarried,
and had not, as far as she was aware, another relative in the
world. It would, therefore, under any circumstances, be bad
policy to offend him. But the letter in which he had made his
offer had been of a very peculiar kind. He had begun by saying
that he was to be turned out of his present berth by a d--- Whig
Government on account of his age, he being as young a man as ever
he had been; that it behoved him to look out for a place of
residence, in which he might live, and, if it should so please
God, die also. He then said that he expected to pay L200 a year
for his board and lodging, which he thought might as well go to
his niece as to some shark, who would probably starve him. He
also said that, poor as he was and always had been, he had
contrived to scrape together a few hundred pounds; that he was
well aware that if he lived among strangers he should be done out
of every shilling of it; but that if his niece would receive him,
he hoped to be able to keep it together for the benefit of his
grand-nieces, &c.

Now Mrs. Woodward knew her uncle to be an honest-minded man; she
knew also, that, in spite of his protestation as to being a very
poor man, he had saved money enough to make him of some
consequence wherever he went; and she therefore conceived that
she could not with prudence send him to seek a home among chance
strangers. She explained as much of this to the girls as she
thought proper, and ended the matter by making them understand
that Captain Cuttwater was to be received.

On the Saturday after this the three scions of the Civil Service
were all at Surbiton Cottage, and it will show how far Charley
had then made good his ground, to state that the coming of the
captain was debated in his presence.

'And when is the great man to be here?' said Norman.

'At once, I believe,' said Mrs. Woodward; 'that is, perhaps,
before the end of this week, and certainly before the end of
next.'

'And what is he like?' said Alaric.

'Why, he has a tail hanging down behind, like a cat or a dog,'
said Katie.

'Hold your tongue, miss,' said Gertrude. 'As he is to come he
must be treated with respect; but it is a great bore. To me it
will destroy all the pleasures of life.'

'Nonsense, Gertrude,' said Mrs. Woodward; 'it is almost wicked of
you to say so. Destroy all the pleasure of life to have an old
gentleman live in the same house with you!--you ought to be more
moderate, my dear, in what you say.'

'That's all very well, mamma,' said Gertrude, 'but you know you
don't like him yourself.'

'But is it true that Captain Cuttwater wears a pigtail?' asked
Norman.

'I don't care what he wears,' said Gertrude; 'he may wear three
if he likes.'

'Oh! I wish he would,' said Katie, laughing; 'that would be so
delicious. Oh, Linda, fancy Captain Cuttwater with three pigtails!'

'I am sorry to disappoint you, Katie,' said Mrs. Woodward, 'but
your uncle does not wear even one; he once did, but he cut it off
long since.'

'I am so sorry,' said Katie.

'I suppose he'll want to dine early, and go to bed early?' said
Linda.

'His going to bed early would be a great blessing,' said
Gertrude, mindful of their midnight conclaves on Saturdays and
Sundays.

'But his getting up early won't be a blessing at all,' said
Linda, who had a weakness on that subject.

'Talking of bed, Harry, you'll have the worst of it,' said Katie,
'for the captain is to have your room.'

'Yes, indeed,' said Mrs. Woodward, sighing gently, 'we shall no
longer have a bed for you, Harry; that _is_ the worst of it.'

Harry of course assured her that if that was the worst of it
there was nothing very bad in it. He could have a bed at the inn
as well as Alaric and Charley. The amount of that evil would only
be half-a-crown a night.

And thus the advent of Captain Cuttwater was discussed.

CHAPTER IV

CAPTAIN CUTTWATER

Captain Cuttwater had not seen much service afloat; that is, he
had not been personally concerned in many of those sea-
engagements which in and about the time of Nelson gave so great a
halo of glory to the British Lion; nor had it even been permitted
to him to take a prominent part in such minor affairs as have
since occurred; he had not the opportunity of distinguishing
himself either at the battle of Navarino or the bombarding of
Acre; and, unfortunately for his ambition, the period of his
retirement came before that great Baltic campaign, in which, had
he been there, he would doubtless have distinguished himself as
did so many others. His earliest years were spent in cruising
among the West Indies; he then came home and spent some
considerable portion of his life in idleness--if that time can be
said to have been idly spent which he devoted to torturing the
Admiralty with applications, remonstrances, and appeals. Then he
was rated as third lieutenant on the books of some worm-eaten old
man-of-war at Portsmouth, and gave up his time to looking after
the stowage of anchors, and counting fathoms of rope. At last he
was again sent afloat as senior lieutenant in a ten-gun brig, and
cruised for some time off the coast of Africa, hunting for
slavers; and returning after a while from this enterprising
employment, he received a sort of amphibious appointment at
Devonport. What his duties were here, the author, being in all
points a landsman, is unable to describe. Those who were inclined
to ridicule Captain Cuttwater declared that the most important of
them consisted in seeing that the midshipmen in and about the
dockyard washed their faces, and put on clean linen not less
often than three times a week. According to his own account, he
had many things of a higher nature to attend to; and, indeed,
hardly a ship sank or swam in Hamoaze except by his special
permission, for a space of twenty years, if his own view of his
own career may be accepted as correct.

He had once declared to certain naval acquaintances, over his
third glass of grog, that he regarded it as his birthright to be
an Admiral; but at the age of seventy-two he had not yet acquired
his birthright, and the probability of his ever attaining it was
becoming very small indeed. He was still bothering Lords and
Secretaries of the Admiralty for further promotion, when he was
astounded by being informed by the Port-Admiral that he was to
be made happy by half-pay and a pension. The Admiral, in
communicating the intelligence, had pretended to think that he
was giving the captain information which could not be otherwise
than grateful to him, but he was not the less aware that the old
man would be furious at being so treated. What, pension him! put
him on half-pay--shelf him for life, while he was still anxiously
expecting that promotion, that call to higher duties which had so
long been his due, and which, now that his powers were matured,
could hardly be longer denied to him! And after all that he had
done for his country--his ungrateful, thankless, ignorant
country--was he thus to be treated? Was he to be turned adrift
without any mark of honour, any special guerdon, any sign of his
Sovereign's favour to testify as to his faithful servitude of
sixty years' devotion? He, who had regarded it as his merest
right to be an Admiral, and had long indulged the hope of being
greeted in the streets of Devonport as Sir Bartholomew Cuttwater,
K.C.B., was he to be thus thrown aside in his prime, with no
other acknowledgement than the bare income to which he was
entitled!

It is hardly too much to say, that no old officers who have
lacked the means to distinguish themselves, retire from either of
our military services, free from the bitter disappointment and
sour feelings of neglected worth, which Captain Cuttwater felt so
keenly. A clergyman, or a doctor, or a lawyer, feels himself no
whit disgraced if he reaches the end of his worldly labours
without special note or honour. But to a soldier or a sailor,
such indifference to his merit is wormwood. It is the bane of the
professions. Nine men out of ten who go into it must live
discontented, and die disappointed.

Captain Cuttwater had no idea that he was an old man. He had
lived for so many years among men of his own stamp, who had grown
grey and bald, and rickety, and weak alongside of him, that he
had no opportunity of seeing that he was more grey or more
rickety than his neighbours. No children had become men and women
at his feet; no new race had gone out into the world and fought
their battles under his notice. One set of midshipmen had
succeeded to another, but his old comrades in the news-rooms and
lounging-places at Devonport had remained the same; and Captain
Cuttwater had never learnt to think that he was not doing, and
was not able to do good service for his country.

The very name of Captain Cuttwater was odious to every clerk at
the Admiralty. He, like all naval officers, hated the Admiralty,
and thought, that of all Englishmen, those five who had been
selected to sit there in high places as joint lords were the most
incapable. He pestered them with continued and almost continuous
applications on subjects of all sorts. He was always asking for
increased allowances, advanced rank, more assistance, less work,
higher privileges, immunities which could not be granted, and
advantages to which he had no claim. He never took answers, but
made every request the subject of a prolonged correspondence;
till at last some energetic Assistant-Secretary declared that it
should no longer be borne, and Captain Cuttwater was dismissed
with pension and half-pay. During his service he had contrived to
save some four or five thousand pounds, and now he was about to
retire with an assured income adequate to all his wants. The
public who had the paying of Captain Cuttwater may, perhaps,
think that he was amply remunerated for what he had done; but the
captain himself entertained a very different opinion.

Such is the view which we are obliged to take of the professional
side of Captain Cuttwater's character. But the professional side
was by far the worst. Counting fathoms of rope and looking after
unruly midshipmen on shore are not duties capable of bringing out
in high relief the better traits of a main's character. Uncle
Bat, as during the few last years of his life he was always
called at Surbiton Cottage, was a gentleman and a man of honour,
in spite of anything that might be said to the contrary at the
Admiralty. He was a man with a soft heart, though the end of his
nose was so large, so red, and so pimply; and rough as was his
usage to little midshipmen when his duty caused him to encounter
them in a body, he had befriended many a one singly with kind
words and an open hand. The young rogues would unmercifully quiz
Old Nosey, for so Captain Cuttwater was generally called in
Devonport, whenever they could safely do so; but, nevertheless,
in their young distresses they knew him for their friend, and
were not slow to come to him.

In person Captain Cuttwater was a tall, heavy man, on whose iron
constitution hogsheads of Hollands and water seemed to have had
no very powerful effect. He was much given to profane oaths; but
knowing that manners required that he should refrain before
ladies, and being unable to bring his tongue sufficiently under
command to do so, he was in the habit of 'craving the ladies'
pardon' after every slip.

All that was really remarkable in Uncle Bat's appearance was
included in his nose. It had always been a generous, weighty,
self-confident nose, inviting to itself more observation than any
of its brother features demanded. But in latter years it had
spread itself out in soft, porous, red excrescences, to such an
extent as to make it really deserving of considerable attention.
No stranger ever passed Captain Cuttwater in the streets of
Devonport without asking who he was, or, at any rate, specially
noticing him.

It must, of course, be admitted that a too strongly pronounced
partiality for alcoholic drink had produced these defects in
Captain Cuttwater's nasal organ; and yet he was a most staunch
friend of temperance. No man alive or dead had ever seen Captain
Cuttwater the worse for liquor; at least so boasted the captain
himself, and there were none, at any rate in Devonport, to give
him the lie. Woe betide the midshipman whom he should see elated
with too much wine; and even to the common sailor who should be
tipsy at the wrong time, he would show no mercy. Most eloquent
were the discourses which he preached against drunkenness, and
they always ended with a reference to his own sobriety. The truth
was, that drink would hardly make Captain Cuttwater drunk. It
left his brain untouched, but punished his nose.

Mrs. Woodward had seen her uncle but once since she had become a
widow. He had then come up to London to attack the Admiralty at
close quarters, and had sojourned for three or four days at
Surbiton Cottage. This was now some ten years since, and the
girls had forgotten even what he was like. Great preparations
were made for him. Though the summer had nearly commenced, a
large fire was kept burning in his bedroom--his bed was newly
hung with new curtains; two feather beds were piled on each
other, and everything was done which five women could think
desirable to relieve the ailings of suffering age. The fact,
however, was that Captain Cuttwater was accustomed to a small
tent bedstead in a room without a carpet, that he usually slept
on a single mattress, and that he never had a fire in his
bedroom, even in the depth of winter.

Travelling from Devonport to London is now an easy matter; and
Captain Cuttwater, old as he was, found himself able to get
through to Hampton in one day. Mrs. Woodward went to meet him at
Hampton Court in a fly, and conveyed him to his new home,
together with a carpet-bag, a cocked hat, a sword, and a very
small portmanteau. When she inquired after the remainder of his
luggage, he asked her what more lumber she supposed he wanted. No
more lumber at any rate made its appearance, then or afterwards;
and the fly proceeded with an easy load to Surbiton Cottage.

There was great anxiety on the part of the girls when the wheels
were heard to stop at the front door. Gertrude kept her place
steadily standing on the rug in the drawing-room; Linda ran to
the door and then back again; but Katie bolted out and ensconced
herself behind the parlour-maid, who stood at the open door,
looking eagerly forth to get the first view of Uncle Bat.

'So here you are, Bessie, as snug as ever,' said the captain, as
he let himself ponderously down from the fly. Katie had never
before heard her mother called Bessie, and had never seen
anything approaching in size or colour to such a nose, consequently
she ran away frightened.

'That's Gertrude--is it?' said the captain.

'Gertrude, uncle! Why Gertrude is a grown-up woman now. That's
Katie, whom you remember an infant.'

'God bless my soul!' said the captain, as though he thought that
girls must grow twice quicker at Hampton than they did at
Devonport or elsewhere, 'God bless my soul!'

He was then ushered into the drawing-room, and introduced in form
to his grand-nieces. 'This is Gertrude, uncle, and this Linda;
there is just enough difference for you to know them apart. And
this Katie. Come here, Katie, and kiss your uncle.'

Katie came up, hesitated, looked horrified, but did manage to get
her face somewhat close to the old man's without touching the
tremendous nose, and then having gone through this peril she
retreated again behind the sofa.

'Well; bless my stars, Bessie, you don't tell me those are your
children?'

'Indeed, uncle, I believe they are. It's a sad tale for me to
tell, is it not?' said the blooming mother with a laugh.

'Why, they'll be looking out for husbands next,' said Uncle Bat.

'Oh! they're doing that already, every day,' said Katie.

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Uncle Bat; 'I suppose so, I suppose so;--
ha, ha, ha!'

Gertrude turned away to the window, disgusted and angry, and made
up her mind to hate Uncle Bat for ever afterwards. Linda made a
little attempt to smile, and felt somewhat glad in her heart that
her uncle was a man who could indulge in a joke.

He was then taken upstairs to his bedroom, and here he greatly
frightened Katie, and much scandalized the parlour-maid by
declaring, immediately on his entering the room, that it was 'd-----
hot, d---ation hot; craving your pardon, ladies!'

'We thought, uncle, you'd like a fire,' began Mrs. Woodward, 'as----'

'A fire in June, when I can hardly carry my coat on my back!'

'It's the last day of May now,' said Katie timidly, from behind
the bed-curtains.

This, however, did not satisfy the captain, and orders were
forthwith given that the fire should be taken away, the curtains
stripped off, the feather beds removed, and everything reduced to
pretty much the same state in which it had usually been left for
Harry Norman's accommodation. So much for all the feminine care
which had been thrown away upon the consideration of Uncle Bat's
infirmities.

'God bless my soul!' said he, wiping his brow with a huge
coloured handkerchief as big as a mainsail, 'one night in such a
furnace as that would have brought on the gout.'

He had dined in town, and by the time that his chamber had been
stripped of its appendages, he was nearly ready for bed. Before
he did so, he was asked to take a glass of sherry.