The Vast Abyss

Chapter One

“I wish I wasn’t such a fool!”

Tom Blount said this to himself as he balanced that self upon a high stool at a desk in his uncle’s office in Gray’s Inn. There was a big book lying open, one which he had to study, but it did not interest him; and though he tried very hard to keep his attention fixed upon its learned words, invaluable to one who would some day bloom into a family solicitor, that book would keep on forming pictures that were not illustrations of legal practice in the courts of law. For there one moment was the big black pond on Elleston Common, where the water lay so still and deep under the huge elms, and the fat tench and eels every now and then sent up bubbles of air, dislodged as they disturbed the bottom.

At another time it would be the cricket-field in summer, or the football on the common in winter, or the ringing ice on the winding river, with the skates flashing as they sent the white powder flying before the wind.

Or again, as he stumbled through the opinions of the judge in “Coopendale versus Drabb’s Exors.,” the old house and garden would stand out from the page like a miniature seen on the ground-glass of a camera; and Tom Blount sighed and his eyes grew dim as he thought of the old happy days in the pleasant home. For father and mother both had passed away to their rest; the house was occupied by another tenant; and he, Tom Blount, told himself that he ought to be very grateful to Uncle James for taking him into his office, to make a man of him by promising to have him articled if, during his year of probation, he proved himself worthy.

“I wouldn’t mind its being so dull,” he thought, “or my aunt not liking me, or Sam being so disagreeable, if I could get on – but I can’t. Uncle’s right, I suppose, in what he says. He ought to know. I’m only a fool; and it doesn’t seem to matter how I try, I can’t get on.”

Just then a door opened, letting in a broad band of sunshine full of dancing motes, and at the same time Samuel Brandon, a lad of about the same age as Tom, but rather slighter of build, but all the same more manly of aspect. He was better dressed too, and wore a white flower in his button-hole, and a very glossy hat. One glove was off, displaying a signet-ring, and he brought with him into the dingy office a strong odour of scent, whose source was probably the white pocket-handkerchief prominently displayed outside his breast-pocket.

“Hullo, bumpkin!” he cried. “How’s Tidd getting on?”

“Very slowly,” said Tom. “I wish you’d try and explain what this bit means.”

“Likely! Think I’m going to find you in brains. Hurry on and peg away. Shovel it in, and think you are going to be Lord Chancellor some day. Guv’nor in his room?”

“No; he has gone on down to the Court. Going out?”

“Yes; up the river – Maidenhead. You heard at the breakfast, didn’t you?”

Tom shook his head.

“I didn’t hear,” he said sadly.

“You never hear anything or see anything. I never met such a dull, chuckle-headed chap as you are. Why don’t you wake up?”

“I don’t know; I do try,” said Tom sadly.

“You don’t know! – you don’t know anything. I don’t wonder at the governor grumbling at you. You’ll have to pull up your boots if you expect to be articled here, and so I tell you. There, I’m off. I’ve got to meet the mater at Paddington at twelve. I say, got any money?”

“No,” said Tom sadly.

“Tchah! you never have. There, pitch into Tidd. You’ve got your work cut out, young fellow. No letters for me?”

“No. Yes, there is – one.”

“No! – yes! Well, you are a pretty sort of a fellow. Where is it?”

“I laid it in uncle’s room.”

“What! Didn’t I tell you my letters were not to go into his room? Of all the – ”

Tom sighed, though he did not hear the last words, for his cousin hurried into the room on their right, came back with a letter, hurried out, and the door swung to again.

“It’s all through being such a fool, I suppose,” muttered the boy. “Why am I not as clever and quick as Sam is? He’s as sharp as uncle; but uncle doesn’t seem a bit like poor mother was.”

Just then Tom Blount made an effort to drive away all thoughts of the past by planting his elbows on the desk, doubling his fists, and resting his puckered-up brow upon them, as he plunged once more into the study of the legal work.

But the thoughts would come flitting by, full of sunshiny memories of the father who died a hero’s death, fighting as a doctor the fell disease which devastated the country town; and of the mother who soon after followed her husband, after requesting her brother to do what he could to help and protect her son.

Then the thought of his mother’s last prayer came to him as it often did – that he should try his best to prove himself worthy of his uncle’s kindness by studying hard.

“And I do – I do – I do,” he burst out aloud, passionately, “only it is so hard; and, as uncle says, I am such a fool.”

“You call me, Blount?” said a voice, and a young old-looking man came in from the next office.

“I! – call? No, Pringle,” said Tom, colouring up.

“You said something out loud, sir, and I thought you called.”

“I – I – ”

“Oh, I see, sir; you was speaking a bit out of your book. Not a bad way to get it into your head. You see you think it and hear it too.”

“It’s rather hard to me, I’m afraid,” said Tom, with the puzzled look intensifying in his frank, pleasant face.

“Hard, sir!” said the man, smiling, and wiping the pen he held on the tail of his coat, though it did not require it, and then he kept on holding it up to his eye as if there were a hair or bit of grit between the nibs. “Yes, I should just think it is hard. Nutshells is nothing to it. Just like bits of granite stones as they mend the roads with. They won’t fit nowhere till you wear ’em and roll ’em down. The law is a hard road and no mistake.”

“And – and I don’t think I’m very clever at it, Pringle.”

“Clever! You’d be a rum one, sir, if you was. Nobody ever masters it all. They pretend to, but it would take a thousand men boiled down and double distilled to get one as could regularly tackle it. It’s an impossibility, sir.”

“What!” said Tom, with plenty of animation now. “Why, look at all the great lawyers!”

“So I do, sir, and the judges too, and what do I see? Don’t they all think different ways about things, and upset one another? Don’t you get thinking you’re not clever because you don’t get on fast. As I said before, you’d be a rum one if you did.”

“But my cousin does,” said Tom.

“Him? Ck!” cried the clerk, with a derisive laugh. “Why, it’s my belief that you know more law already than Mr Sam does, and what I say to you is – Look out! the guv’nor!”

The warning came too late, for Mr James Brandon entered the outer office suddenly, and stopped short, to look sharply from one to the other – a keen-eyed, well-dressed man of five-and-forty; and as his brows contracted he said sharply —

“Then you’ve finished the deed, Pringle?” just as the clerk was in the act of passing through the door leading to the room where he should have been at work.

“The deed, sir? – no, not quite, sir. Shan’t be long, sir.”

“You shall be long – out of work, Mr Pringle, if you indulge in the bad habit of idling and gossiping as soon as my back’s turned.”

Pringle shot back to his desk, the door swung to, and Mr James Brandon turned to his nephew, with his face looking double of aspect – that is to say, the frown was still upon his brow, while a peculiarly tight-looking smile appeared upon his lips, which seemed to grow thinner and longer, and as if a parenthesis mark appeared at each end to shut off the smile as something illegal.

“I am glad you are mastering your work so well, Tom,” he said softly.

“Mastering it, uncle!” said Tom, with an uneasy feeling of doubt raised by his relative’s look. “I – I’m afraid I am getting on very slowly.”

“But you can find time to idle and hinder my clerk.”

“He had only just come in, uncle, and – ”

“That will do, sir,” said the lawyer, with the smile now gone. “I’ve told you more than once, sir, that you were a fool, and now I repeat it. You’ll never make a lawyer. Your thick, dense brain has only one thought in it, and that is how you can idle and shirk the duty that I for your mother’s sake have placed in your way. What do you expect, sir? – that I am going to let you loaf about my office, infecting those about you, and trying to teach your cousin your lazy ways? I don’t know what I could have been thinking about to take charge of such a great idle, careless fellow.”

“Not careless, uncle,” pleaded the lad. “I do try, but it is so hard.”

“Silence, sir! Try! – not you. I meant to do my duty by you, and in due time to impoverish myself by paying for your articles – nearly a hundred pounds, sir. But don’t expect it. I’m not going to waste my hard-earned savings upon a worthless, idle fellow. Lawyer! Pish! You’re about fit for a shoeblack, sir, or a carter. You’ll grow into as great an idiot as your father was before you. What my poor sister could have seen in him I don’t – ”

Bang!

Chapter Two

The loudly-closed door of the private office cut short Mr James Brandon’s speech, and he had passed out without looking round, or he would have seen that his nephew looked anything but a fool as he sat there with his fists clenched and his eyes flashing.

“How dare he call my dear dead father an idiot!” he said in a low fierce voice through his compressed teeth. “Oh, I can’t bear it – I won’t bear it. If I were not such a miserable coward I should go off and be a soldier, or a sailor, or anything so that I could be free, and not dependent on him. I’ll go. I must go. I cannot bear it,” he muttered; and then with a feeling of misery and despair rapidly increasing, he bent down over his book again, for a something within him seemed to whisper – “It would be far more cowardly to give up and go.”

Then came again the memory of his mother’s words, and he drew his breath through his teeth as if he were in bodily as well as mental pain; and forcing himself to read, he went on studying the dreary law-book till, in his efforts to understand the author, his allusions, quotations, footnotes, and references, he grew giddy, and at last the words grew blurred, and he had to read sentences over and over again to make sense of them, which slid out of his mind like so much quicksilver.

Lunch-time came, and Pringle crept through the place where he was seated, glanced at Mr Brandon’s door, stepped close up, and whispered —

“I’m going to get my dinner. Don’t look downhearted about a wigging, Mr Tom. It’s nothing when you’re used to it.”

“Ahem!” came from the inner office, and Pringle made a grimace like a pantomime clown, suggesting mock horror and fear, as he glided to the outer door, where he turned, looked back, and then disappeared; while, as soon as he was alone, Tom took out a paper of sandwiches, opened it, and began to eat, it being an understood thing that he should not leave the office all day.

But those sandwiches, good enough of their kind, tasted as if they were made of sawdust, and he had hard work to get them down, and then only by the help of a glass of water from the table-filter, standing at the side of the office – kept, Pringle said, to revive unfortunate clients whose affairs were going to the bad. Every now and then a cough was heard from the inner office, and Tom hurried over his meal in dread lest his uncle should appear before he had finished. Then, as soon as the last was eaten, and the paper thrust into the waste-basket, the boy attacked his book once more, and had hardly recommenced when the inner office door opened, and his uncle appeared, looking at him sharply – ready, Tom thought, to find fault with him for being so long over his midday meal.

But there was nothing to complain about.

“I’m going to have my lunch,” he said sharply, “and I may not come back, though all the same I may. Mind that man Pringle goes on with his work, and don’t let me have any fault to find about your reading. When you go home tell them to give you something to eat, for there will be no regular dinner to-day, as I shall be out. Take home any letters that may come, in case I don’t look in.”

“All right, uncle.”

“And don’t speak in that free-and-easy, offhand, unbusiness-like manner. Say ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir,’ if you are not too stupid to remember.”

He put on his hat and went out, leaving the boy feeling as if a fresh sting had been planted in his breast, and his brow wrinkled up more than ever, while his heart grew more heavy in his intense yearning for somebody who seemed to care for him, if ever so little.

Five minutes later Pringle came back, looking shining and refreshed. As he entered he gave Tom an inquiring look, and jerked his head sidewise toward the inner office.

Tom was not too stupid to understand the dumb language of that look and gesture.

“No,” he replied. “He went out five minutes ago, and said that very likely he wouldn’t be back.”

“And that you were to take any letters home after office hours?”

“Yes; how did you know?”

“How did I know!” said the clerk with a chuckle; “because I’ve been caught before. That means that he’ll be sure to look in before very long to see whether we are busy. You’d better read hard, sir, and don’t look up when he comes. Pst! ’ware hawk!”

He slipped into the little office, and his stool made a scraping noise, while, almost before Tom had settled down to his work, the handle of the outer door turned and his uncle bustled in.

“Here, did I leave my umbrella?” he said sharply.

“I did not see it, uncle – sir,” replied Tom, jumping from his stool.

“Keep your place, sir, and go on with your work. Don’t be so fond of seizing any excuse to get away from your books. Humph, yes,” he muttered, as he reached into his room and took up the ivory-handled article from where it stood.

The next moment he was at the door of the clerk’s office.

“By the way, Pringle, you had better go and have that deed stamped this afternoon if you get it done in time.”

“Yes, sir,” came back sharply, and the lawyer frowned, turned round, and went out once more.

The outer door had not closed a minute before the inner one opened, and Pringle’s head appeared, but with its owner evidently on the alert, and ready to snatch it back again.

“Good-bye! Bless you!” he said aloud. “Pray take care of yourself, sir. You can bob back again if you like, but I shan’t be out getting the deed stamped, because, as you jolly well know, it won’t be done before this time to-morrow.”

Pringle looked at Tom, smiled, and nodded.

“You won’t tell him what I said, Mr Tom, I know. But I say, don’t you leave your stool. You take my advice. Don’t you give him a chance to row you again, because I can see how it hurts you.”

Tom’s lip quivered as he looked wistfully at the clerk.

“It’s all right, sir. You just do what’s c’rect, and you needn’t mind anything. I ain’t much account, but I do know that. I wouldn’t stay another month, only there’s reasons, you see, and places are easier to lose than find, ’specially when your last guv’nor makes a face with the corners of his lips down when any one asks for your character. Pst! look out. Here he is again.”

For there was a step at the door, the handle rattled, and as Pringle disappeared, a quiet, grave-looking, middle-aged man stepped in.

“Do, Tom!” he said, as with an ejaculation of surprise the boy sprang from his stool and eagerly took the extended hand, but dropped it again directly, for there did not seem to be any warmth in the grasp. “Quite well, boy?”

“Yes, Uncle Richard,” said Tom, rather sadly.

“That’s right. Where’s my brother?”

“He has gone out, sir, and said he might not return this afternoon.”

“Felt I was coming perhaps,” said the visitor. “Here, don’t let me hinder you, my lad; he won’t like you to waste time. Getting on with your law reading?”

The boy looked at him wistfully, and shook his head.

“Eh? No? But you must, my lad. You’re no fool, you know, and you’ve got to be a clever lawyer before you’ve done.”

Tom felt disposed to quote his other uncle’s words as to his folly, but he choked down the inclination.

“There, I won’t hinder you, my lad,” continued the visitor. “I know what you busy London people are, and how we slow-going country folk get in your way. I only want to look at a Directory, – you have one I know.”

“Yes, sir, in the other office. I’ll fetch it.”

The quiet, grey-haired, grave-looking visitor gave a nod as if of acquiescence, and Tom ran into the inner office, where he found that Pringle must have heard every word, for he was holding out the London Directory all ready.

“He must hear everything too when uncle goes on at me,” thought Tom, as he took the Directory and returned Pringle’s friendly nod.

“Tell him he ought to give you a tip.”

Tom frowned, shook his head, and hurried back with the great red book.

“Hah, that’s right, my boy,” said the visitor. “There, I don’t want to bother about taking off my gloves and putting on my spectacles. Turn to the trades, and see if there are any lens-makers down.”

“Yes, sir, several,” said Tom, after a short search.

“Read ’em down, boy.”

Tom obeyed alphabetically till he came to D, and he had got as far as Dallmeyer when his visitor stopped him.

“That will do,” he said. “That’s the man I want. Address?”

Tom read this out, and the visitor said —

“Good; but write it down so that I don’t forget. It’s so easy to have things drop out of your memory.”

Tom obeyed, and the visitor took up the slip of paper, glanced at it, and nodded.

“That’s right. Nice clear hand, that one can read easily.”

“And Uncle James said my writing was execrable,” thought Tom.

“Good-bye for the present, boy. Tell your uncle I’ve been, and that I shall come on in time for dinner. Bye. Be a good boy, and stick to your reading.”

He nodded, shook hands rather coldly, and went out, leaving Tom looking wistfully after him with the big Directory in his hands.

“They neither of them like me,” he said to himself, feeling sadly depressed, when he started, and turned sharply round.

“On’y me, Mr Tom,” said the clerk. “I’ll take that. Directories always live in my office. I say, sir.”

“Yes, Pringle.”

“I used to wish I’d got a lot of rich old uncles, but I don’t now. Wouldn’t give tuppence a dozen for ’em. Ketched again! – All right, Mr Tom, sir; I’ll put it away.”

For the door opened once more, and their late visitor thrust in his head.

“Needn’t tell your uncle I shall come to-night.”

Pringle disappeared with the Directory, and Uncle Richard gazed after him in a grim way as he continued —

“Do you hear? Don’t tell him I shall come; and you needn’t mention that I said he wouldn’t want me, nor to his wife and boy neither. Bye.”

The door closed again, and the inner door opened, and Pringle’s head appeared once more.

“Nor we don’t neither, nor nobody else don’t. I say, Mr Tom, I thought it was the governor. Ever seen him before?”

“Only twice,” said Tom. “He has been abroad a great deal. He only came back to England just before dear mother – ”

Tom stopped short, and Pringle nodded, looked very grave, and said softly —

“I know what you was going to say, Mr Tom.”

“And I saw him again,” continued the lad, trying to speak firmly, “when it was being settled that I was to come here to learn to be a lawyer. Uncle James wanted Uncle Richard to bring me up, but he wouldn’t, and said I should be better here.”

“Well, perhaps you are, Mr Tom, sir,” said Pringle thoughtfully. “I don’t know as I should care to live with him.”

“Nor I, Pringle, for – Here, I say, I don’t know why I tell you all this.”

Pringle grinned.

“More don’t I, sir. P’r’aps it’s because we both get into trouble together, and that makes people hang to one another. Steps again. Go it, sir.”

The clerk darted away, and Tom started leading once more; but the steps passed, and so did the long, dreary afternoon, with Tom struggling hard to master something before six o’clock came; and before the clock had done striking Pringle was ready to shut up and go.

“You’ll take the keys, sir,” he said. “Guv’nor won’t come back now. I’ve got well on with that deed, if he asks you when he comes home. Good-evening, sir.”

“Good-evening, Pringle,” said Tom; and ten minutes later he was on his way to his uncle’s house in Mornington Crescent, where he found dinner waiting for him, and though it was only cold, it was made pleasant by the handmaid’s smile.

Tom began a long evening all alone over another law-book, and at last, with his head aching, and a dull, weary sense of depression, he went up to the bedroom which he shared with his cousin, jumped into his own bed as soon as he could to rest his aching head, and lay listening to a street band playing airs that sounded depressing and sorrowful in the extreme, and kept him awake till he felt as if he could never drop off, and cease hearing the rumble of omnibuses and carts.

Then all at once Mr Tidd came and sat upon his head, and made it ache ten times worse, or so it seemed – Mr Tidd being the author of one of the books his uncle had placed in his hands to read.

He tried to force him off, but he would not stir, only glared down at him laughing loud, and then mockingly, till the torture seemed too much to be borne; and in an agony of misery and despair he tried to escape from the pressure, and to assure his torturer that he would strive hard to master the book. But not a word could he utter, only lie there panting, till the eyes that glared looked close down into his, and a voice said —

“Now then, wake up, stupid. Don’t be snoring like that.”

Chapter Three

Tom Blount started up in bed confused and staring. He was only half awake, and it was some time before he could realise that it was his cousin, who had come back from his trip boisterous and elated, and who had been playing him some trick as he lay there asleep.

“Well, what are you staring at, old torpid?” cried Sam, as he now began to divest himself slowly of his coat and vest.

“I – that is – have been asleep,” stammered Tom.

“Asleep? Yes, and snoring loud enough to bring the plaster off the ceiling. Why, you must have been gorging yourself like a boa-constrictor, and been sleeping it off. Come, wake up, bumpkin, you’re half stupid now.”

“I’m quite awake, Sam. Had a pleasant day? I say, were you sitting on my head?”

“Was I doing what?” cried Sam. “No, I wasn’t; but you want some one to sit upon you to bring you to your senses. Wake up; I want to talk.”

Tom tried to rub the last traces of his drowsiness out of his eyes, and now sat up watching his cousin, who, after taking off collar and tie, unfastened his braces, and then, as if moved by a sudden thought, he tied the aforesaid suspenders about his waist. Then, grinning to himself, he stooped down, untied his Oxford shoes, pushed them off, took up one, and shouting “Play!” bowled it sharply at Tom where he sat up in bed on the other side of the room.

It was a bad shot, for the shoe whizzed by the lad’s side, and struck the scroll-work of the iron bedstead with a sharp rap, and fell on the pillow.

“Play again!” cried Sam, and he sent the second shoe spinning with a vicious energy at the still confused and sleepy boy.

This time the aim was excellent, and Tom was too helpless to avoid the missile, which struck him heavily, the edge of the heel catching him on the chin, and making him wince.

“Well played – well bowled!” cried Sam, laughing boisterously. “I say, bumpkin, that’s the way to wake you up.”

Tom’s face grew dark, and the hand which he held to his injured face twitched as if the fingers were trying to clench themselves and form a fist for their owner’s defence; but the boy did not stir, only sat looking at his cousin, who now struck an attitude, made two or three feints, and then dashed forward hitting out sharply, catching Tom in the chest, and knocking him backward so heavily that it was his crown now that struck the scroll-work of the bed.