evening, Mr. Hunsden,” muttered I with a bow, and then, like a shy noodle as I was, I began moving away – and why? Simply because Mr. Hunsden was a manufacturer and a mill-owner, and I was only a clerk, and my instinct propelled me from my superior. I had frequently seen Hunsden in Bigben Close, where he came almost weekly to transact business with Mr. Crimsworth, but I had never spoken to him, nor he to me, and I owed him a sort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once been the tacit witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had the conviction that he could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave, wherefore I now went about to shun his presence and eschew his conversation[35].
“Where are you going?” asked he, as I edged off sideways. I had already noticed that Mr. Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms of speech, and I perversely said to myself:
“He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk; but my mood is not, perhaps, so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedom pleases me not at all.”
I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, and continued to move away. He coolly planted himself in my path.
“Stay here awhile,” said he: “it is so hot in the dancing-room; besides, you don’t dance; you have not had a partner to-night.”
He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor manner displeased me; my amour-propre[36] was propitiated; he had not addressed me out of condescension, but because, having repaired to the cool dining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some one to talk to, by way of temporary amusement[37]. I hate to be condescended to, but I like well enough to oblige; I stayed.
“That is a good picture,” he continued, recurring to the portrait.
“Do you consider the face pretty?” I asked.
“Pretty! no – how can it be pretty, with sunk eyes and hollow cheeks? but it is peculiar; it seems to think. You could have a talk with that woman, if she were alive, on other subjects than dress, visiting, and compliments.”
I agreed with him, but did not say so. He went on.
“Not that I admire a head of that sort; it wants character and force; there’s too much of the sen-si-tive (so he articulated it, curling his lip at the same time) in that mouth; besides, there is Aristocrat written on the brow and defined in the figure; I hate your aristocrats.”
“You think, then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician descent may be read in a distinctive cast of form and features?”
“Patrician descent be hanged![38] Who doubts that your lordlings may have their ‘distinctive cast of form and features’ as much as we – — shire tradesmen have ours? But which is the best? Not theirs assuredly. As to their women, it is a little different: they cultivate beauty from childhood upwards, and may by care and training attain to a certain degree of excellence in that point, just like the Oriental odalisques. Yet even this superiority is doubtful. Compare the figure in that frame with Mrs. Edward Crimsworth – which is the finer animal?”
I replied quietly: “Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth, Mr. Hunsden.”
“Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides he has a straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but these advantages – if they are advantages – he did not inherit from his mother, the patrician, but from his father, old Crimsworth, who, MY father says, was as veritable a – — shire blue-dyer as ever put indigo in a vat yet withal the handsomest man in the three Ridings[39]. It is you, William, who are the aristocrat of your family, and you are not as fine a fellow as your plebeian brother by long chalk[40].”
There was something in Mr. Hunsden’s point-blank mode of speech which rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my ease. I continued the conversation with a degree of interest.
“How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth’s brother? I thought you and everybody else looked upon me only in the light of a poor clerk.”
“Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk? You do Crimsworth’s work, and he gives you wages – shabby wages they are, too.”
I was silent. Hunsden’s language now bordered on the impertinent, still his manner did not offend me in the least – it only piqued my curiosity; I wanted him to go on, which he did in a little while.
“This world is an absurd one,” said he.
“Why so, Mr. Hunsden?”
“I wonder you should ask: you are yourself a strong proof of the absurdity I allude to.”
I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord[41], without my pressing him so to do – so I resumed my silence.
“Is it your intention to become a tradesman?” he inquired presently.
“It was my serious intention three months ago.”
“Humph! the more fool you – you look like a tradesman! What a practical business-like face you have!”
“My face is as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunsden.”
“The Lord never made either your face or head for X – — . What good can your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem, conscientiousness, do you here? But if you like Bigben Close, stay there; it’s your own affair, not mine.”
“Perhaps I have no choice.”
“Well, I care nought about it – it will make little difference to me what you do or where you go; but I’m cool now – I want to dance again; and I see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of the sofa there by her mamma; see if I don’t get her for a partner in a jiffy[42]! There’s Waddy – Sam Waddy making up to her[43]; won’t I cut him out?”
And Mr. Hunsden strode away. I watched him through the open folding-doors; he outstripped Waddy, applied for the hand of the fine girl, and led her off triumphant. She was a tall, well-made, full-formed, dashingly-dressed young woman, much in the style of Mrs. E. Crimsworth; Hunsden whirled her through the waltz with spirit; he kept at her side during the remainder of the evening, and I read in her animated and gratified countenance that he succeeded in making himself perfectly agreeable. The mamma too (a stout person in a turban – Mrs. Lupton by name) looked well pleased; prophetic visions probably flattered her inward eye. The Hunsdens were of an old stem[44]; and scornful as Yorke (such was my late interlocutor’s name) professed to be of the advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well knew and fully appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high lineage conferred on him in a mushroom-place like X – —, concerning whose inhabitants it was proverbially said, that not one in a thousand knew his own grandfather. Moreover the Hunsdens, once rich, were still independent; and report affirmed that Yorke bade fair, by his success in business, to restore to pristine prosperity the partially decayed fortunes of his house. These circumstances considered, Mrs. Lupton’s broad face might well wear a smile of complacency as she contemplated the heir of Hunsden Wood occupied in paying assiduous court to her darling Sarah Martha. I, however, whose observations being less anxious, were likely to be more accurate, soon saw that the grounds
I now went about to shun his presence and eschew his conversation – (
by way of temporary amusement – (
Patrician descent be hanged! – (
in the three Ridings – Райдинги, три части, на которые исторически делился Йоркшир (северная Англия)
by long chalk – (
of his own accord – (
in a jiffy – (
making up to her – (
were of an old stem – (
