The Master Craftsman

‘Yes, Sir George,’ said the lawyer, looking mighty serious. ‘We have at length ascertained how you stand. Your father conducted—misconducted—his affairs without consulting us—and we knew nothing of what was going on—nothing at all.’

I inclined my head. I had already heard certain things which had led me to expect something unpleasant. Now I was to learn the whole truth.

My father, the second Baronet, and son of the well-known judge and lawyer, had died five weeks or so before this interview. He died at the age of fifty-two, having led a perfectly quiet and apparently harmless life. Harmless! You shall see. I was twenty-five, and after the usual run of Eton and Cambridge, I had my chambers in Piccadilly, and my club, and led the life customary among young men of fortune. I knew nothing, and learned nothing, and could do nothing, except play with a lathe. I was not bookish, or artistic, or scientific, or musical, or literary, or anything. Therefore the intelligence that I was about to receive was even more delightful than it would have been to a man who could do things, write things, and sell things.

‘You know already,’ the lawyer continued, ‘that your father met with serious losses on the Stock Exchange?’

‘I know so much, certainly.’

‘I have here everything ready for you. Before you look at it, Sir George, be prepared for a very—a most painful surprise.’

‘Tell me all—at once.’

‘Then, Sir George—it is a most distressing communication to make—but you are young, which is the only consolation—young and strong—and, I doubt not, a philosopher——’

‘I am especially and above all things a philosopher. But pray get on.’

‘Your grandfather, with his magnificent, his unequalled practice, and the habits of prudence which guided all his investments, rolled up what we call, in the profession, a colossal fortune—not colossal in the City sense, but in our sense. It was over a quarter of a million, which your father, then forty years of age, inherited. When he died, five weeks ago, at the age of fifty-two, he had managed by those speculations of his to get through the whole of it—the whole of it—with his country house and his town house. Ah! Sir George, why—why—why did not the Judge entail the whole? It maddens me only to think of it! He has lost all—everything.’ The lawyer rubbed it in with resolution. ‘You have no longer any fortune left; you have no house; my poor young friend, you have nothing but a few scraps and crumbs left of that splendid fortune that seemed to be yours two months ago.’

‘Lost the whole of the fortune? In ten years? He could not.’

‘Everything is possible on the Stock Exchange. He has lost it all.’

‘You mean that I have nothing. Say it again.’

‘Your father, in ten years, lost the whole of his fortune. You have got left, practically, nothing.’

‘Thank you. I have got nothing. I shall realize it presently. It makes one feel chilly. I have got nothing.’ I put my fingers in my waistcoat pocket. ‘Here are some coins. They are mine, I suppose. There are two or three hundred pounds standing to my account at the Bank; are they mine, too?’

‘Yes. And to speak of crumbs and scraps, I think I may save a little something for you out of the wreck. But it will be a mere trifle. I estimate it at the most as three thousand pounds.’

‘Oh! I have three thousand pounds. You are quite sure you have done your very worst?’

‘I can do nothing worse than this for you.’

I got up and stood over the empty fireplace. ‘I suppose,’ I said slowly, ‘that it is very bad. I am not a person of imagination, you know, and I cannot feel, all at once, how bad it is. A thing like this cannot be appreciated all at once. It takes time—it has to get into the system.’

‘There is, at all events, something—a solid something, though small,’ said the lawyer, watching me with some curiosity to see how I took it.

‘Yes, a kind of nugget. It promises to become exciting. I shall become the penniless adventurer of fiction. Should I, do you think, begin to practise billiards? Or does écarté offer a better opening?’

‘You must consider, Sir George, when you come to take this business seriously, that many a man with less than that has got on in the world, and made a name for himself, and even amassed a fortune. Your grandfather certainly began with less.’

‘The men who get on in the world are the men who start with twopence. Reduce me to twopence, with an introduction to the Lord Mayor, and no doubt I shall get on.’

‘Nonsense. Take the thing seriously: think over what can be done with three thousand pounds. It is quite enough, with prudence, to keep you while you are qualifying for a profession, and to start you afterwards—law, medicine, the church, which will you have? Or there are the new fangled professions which used to be trades—science, art, engineering, architecture: you may take up any one of these and qualify for practice with three thousand pounds. Or you might start a horse or cattle farm—there is an opening they tell me, and the rent of land in some places is very low. Or you might buy a partnership in a house of business—three thousand pounds would go a long way in many houses. There are a hundred ways in which a prudent man might invest that sum of money. I assure you, Sir George, that there are thousands of young fellows, as well educated as yourself, who, if they had three thousand pounds to begin with, would feel that all the wealth of Lombard Street was well within their reach. And they’d manage to get a good slice of it, too.’

‘Very likely. I don’t feel that way at all myself. I am quite certain that, whatever I did, I should get none of the wealth of Lombard Street.’

‘I am only pointing out the possibilities of things.’

‘You see, I am not that kind of young man at all. And that is not the kind of life that I desire. Money-making—I suppose it is natural to one whose money has been made for him—seems an ignoble pursuit, at the best.’

‘Well—well, but permit me, you haven’t yet got the true feeling of your poverty. You don’t quite understand yet what it means—the difference it makes. When it really gets into your blood and your bones, and you see rising up walls between you and the old world of enjoyment, with prohibitions, and exclusions, and limitations, then, my dear young friend, you will feel stimulated to make an effort in a way that as yet you cannot understand. How should you understand all these evils in a moment? Let me tell you, Sir George, poverty is a terrible thing—a terrible thing. It deprives a young man like you of the chief pleasures of his age; it denies a middle-aged man what most he desires at that time of life, consideration and authority; and it robs an old man of those comforts and attentions and cares which alone can solace his infirmities. I have been poor myself, Sir George, and I speak with full and bitter knowledge. Never say that money-making is ignoble; the methods may be ignoble, but the pursuit is natural, laudable, honourable. Money, my friend, is the only thing—the only thing—that makes life tolerable. Without it there can be no happiness, no independence, no authority, no self-respect. Get money somehow.’ The old man spoke with sincerity and conviction. Of course, he was quite right. Yet, as I afterwards reflected, in the possession of money there are degrees. Many an old man with two hundred a year is as happy as another old man with ten thousand a year. Yet some money must be made. Wherefore let every man calculate what he wants for comfort, and money-make up to that standard, and no more.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I will think it over. At this moment you cannot expect me to have any coherent ideas on the subject. I really do think, however, that there is no one in the world less able to make money than myself.’

‘Wait—be patient—and consider what things mean. Heavens! If we could only make young men understand.’

‘Well,’ I took up my hat. ‘If you have really done your worst——’

‘Don’t go just yet, Sir George. I have one or two things still to say.’ The solicitor, whose face generally had more of keenness than of benevolence in it, leaned back and assumed an unwonted expression with more benevolence in it than keenness. ‘I confess I was somewhat nervous about this job. To tell a young man that he has no fortune left—a young man who seemed to inherit so enormous a fortune—was rather a formidable task. I congratulate you, Sir George, on your pluck. You take it very well. You might have fallen into a rage, and filled the room with reproaches of your dead father.’

‘Since he was my father and is dead, that would be impossible.’

‘Quite so. Yet nobody can deny that he has done you a most grievous injury. You bear this calamity, I say, with a fortitude which is astonishing. Let us return to what you might do; you are young, you are well-bred, you are good-looking, you have pleasant manners, you are——’

He lifted his eyebrows into a note of interrogation.

‘Clever? No. Nor bookish. Nor scientific. Nor inclined to any of the professions. And ignorant to the last degree.’

‘Dear! dear! What a thousand pities this misfortune did not happen twenty years ago! Then you would have been trained to something. Whereas now——’ He considered a little. ‘Let us think of a few other things. Journalism?’

‘I told you, I am not clever.’

‘Pity. Journalism requires no capital and no training. I would not recommend the stage.’

‘I cannot act.’

‘There is one thing we have forgotten, Sir George. You are a young man of good family; you have, therefore, family influence. You must set that to work for you. People think that everything nowadays goes by competitive examination. Ho! ho! The world is kept in the dark entirely for the sake of young men like you. There are quantities of lucky people—commissioners, secretaries, people about the Court, people everywhere—who get in by family influence, and get on by family influence. There are colonial appointments, some of them very good indeed, if you don’t mind going abroad. Or you might begin as a private secretary to a rising man. Why, there was a private secretary once who became a peer. The best thing you can do is to go to your own people.’

‘Unfortunately it is no use. I haven’t got any people. My mother was the daughter of a simple country clergyman, and her relations are all middle-class professional folk. My grandfather married as soon as he began to get on at the Bar—his wife belonged strictly to the middle class. The Judge’s father was a West End builder—originally an East End boat-builder. I remember that because there is a romance in the family about an old sailor and a bag of diamonds. My great-grandfather’s cousin and partner secretly stole that bag of diamonds. That caused a dissolution of partnership and destruction of cousinly affection. The real reason why my grandfather was sent to the Bar was because the old man thought that if there was a lawyer in the family his cousin might be prosecuted, and so his share of those jewels might be recovered. But the prosecution never came off.’

‘Odd story. I wonder how much truth there is in it.’

‘Not much, I dare say. But the point is that we are quite a bourgeois lot, and that I do not possess in reality, though I have got this trifling handle to my name, either family, friends or influence.’

‘But you do possess your title. And believe me, Sir George, if you are careful you may find that it is a very valuable possession indeed. By means of your title you may once more join the wealthy classes. Thousands of women, rich women, daughters of wealthy men, would give anything for a title. Find out where these women are—in York, in Bath, in Birmingham, in Liverpool, in Manchester, here in London. Get introductions, and you will find your path smoother for you.’

‘Marry money?’ I shuddered.

‘Do not misunderstand me. You are not expected to marry an old woman, or an ugly woman. There are as many nice girls and pretty girls who have money as there are old women. Marry money, young man. Marry money. It is the easiest thing in the world for you to do. And, I am quite sure, quite the most pleasant. As for love, it is all imagination. And, besides, why shouldn’t you love a rich girl as well as a poor girl?’

‘No. Not to be thought of.’

‘Well, if you won’t marry money, there is the City. A baronet’s name still, even after the many rude shocks of these latter years, looks well on a board of directors. You would find it quite easy to get put on the Direction somewhere or other. The qualification is not a great deal. What do you think of that?’

‘Why—as I know nothing whatever of business, it would be a kind of fraud on the shareholders. I should undertake duties of which I know nothing.’

‘Generally the interests of the shareholders in the appointment of directors is the very last thing the promoters consider. They want the shares taken up.’

‘Then it would be still more a fraud upon the shareholders. That way won’t do.’

‘Sir George, I fear I cannot help you. These are the existing ways of making money. Choose. If you will have none of them, then we come back to the easiest way—marry money—and if you refuse that——’ He spread his hands, meaning, ‘then you must starve.’

I walked away thoughtfully. About the fortitude and the pluck I say nothing. One must not, in these days, sit down and cry. At the same time, it was with a very heavy heart that I mounted to my chambers—Plantagenet Mansions, eighth floor, about half-way up.

‘Marry money, marry money,’ said the solicitor.

The words kept ringing in my ears like the tolling of a bell.

For, you see, in order to marry money I had no occasion to go to New York or to Bath or Manchester or Birmingham. The money was actually waiting for me with the marriage. I had only to reach out my hand and take it, and with the money, the owner of it. And not an old woman, at all; nor an ugly woman; nor a woman maimed or halt in mind or in body; a woman, eminently desirable, beautiful, wealthy, well-born, and of sweet disposition. Attached to the marriage there would be certain conditions, but such as most men would consider quite light, easy, and tolerable conditions.

‘Marry money—marry money—marry money.’ The words rang in my ears like the ringing of a bell.

So the first effect of the wreck and ruin of my fortune was a great and strong temptation, a voice urging me to reach out my hand and take this fortune which lay ready waiting for me.

‘Marry money! Marry money!’ said the man of large experience and of many years.

I turned mechanically into the room called my study. It was really my workroom. It was fitted with a lathe and with a bench. On the wall were hundreds of tools, bright and glittering. There was a shelf of books, technical books about carpentering, wood-carving, cabinet-making, fretwork, iron-work, and the like; there were ‘blocks’ ready for use; there were boxes and other things, finished and unfinished, chased, rounded, polished. The lathe represented my one talent.

I looked at the machine thoughtfully. ‘If I could only make money out of you. And now, I am very much afraid, I shall have to sell you for what you will fetch—tools and block and all. Pity! Pity!’ I laid a loving hand upon the bright and delicate machinery. I wish it had sighed, or groaned, or done anything by way of sympathetic response. But it did not. Even in romance machinery is not responsive.

‘Marry money,’ whispered the voice.

Was there no way by which I could earn a livelihood? You, who have been carefully taught from childhood that you have your own way to make in the world; who have served an apprenticeship; who have learned the mystery of a craft; who have learned the way of work, the ordinary groove; who have become keen; who have lived in City houses, where they think of nothing but business—suppose you were thrown into the world at five-and-twenty, with no special knowledge whatever. Do you think you would sink or swim?

‘Marry money,’ said the solicitor. ‘Marry money.’

On the walls hung the portraits of ancestors. I had three, which is one more than most of us can boast. Yet it is not exactly a long line of ancestry. The portrait of my father hung in the middle—to the living, reigning Prince belongs the place of honour. It showed a man of neat and even sleek appearance, clean-shaven, gray-headed, with mild eyes; a man of no marked character, one would think. The shallow observer would set him down as a man who could do no harm. Quite wrong. There is no one so mild and meek that he cannot do harm. ‘To think,’ said his son, addressing the portrait, ‘that you have done this mischief—you! Why did not the painter give you eager, starting eyes, and trembling lips, and a flushed cheek? Lying painter!’ But to reproach a portrait is next door to reproaching the person it represents. I turned to the next picture, that of my grandfather, the Judge, in wig and robes, looking very much like Rhadamanthus.

‘All your money is gone, my lord. Do you understand? All the money that you scraped together. It is gone—lost—wasted—thrown away. You have doubtless met your son by this time. Perhaps he has explained things. Don’t be hard on him.’

On the other side hung the portrait of the builder. ‘What do you say?’ I asked. ‘How do you like the fall of the family fortunes? Perhaps you can advise something practical.’

‘Marry money! Marry money.’ Was it the voice of the builder?

Portraits seldom respond. Spiritualists should look to it. There would be no need of incarnating a spirit if you could make him speak out of his own portrait. I turned away from these silent, unsympathetic effigies and began mechanically to turn the lathe. But my mind was not with the work; I laid down the block, and sat down. Again the solicitor seemed to be addressing me.

‘Marry money—marry money.’

I saw letters lying on the table, and tore open the first, the one whose handwriting I knew. It was a woman’s.

I left the other two letters unread.

‘Marry money—marry money,’ said the solicitor.

I opened a drawer, and took out a dainty case of red velvet bound with gold. It contained a single photograph. It was the portrait of a girl, and showed a very striking face—the face of a queen or a princess. Her name was surely Imperia, certainly a grande dame de par le monde. A most regal face; the brow and cheek ample; the eyes large and steady; the features clear and regular; the lips firm; the chin rounded; everything about this woman large, including her mind; a woman whom the common herd would fear, though they might reverence her. It would require either a brave man or a presumptuous man to make love to her. Her eyes looked out of the picture with a kindly light.

‘There is no woman like Frances,’ I thought. ‘And yet——’

When one has been brought up from childhood side by side with a girl, seeing her every day, a girl a little older than one’s self, and a great deal cleverer, the affection which one feels for that girl partakes of the brotherly emotion. Therefore I said, ‘And yet——’

‘Marry money—marry money,’ this importunate solicitor continued.

Yesterday, perhaps—I don’t know—it was possible; to-day, no. My father, when he threw away my money, threw away that possibility. Frances vanished from my grasp gradually—in wild cat mines, in gold reefs, in Central African railways, in Central American bonds.

Again, like a song of rest and happiness, came the temptation:

‘Marry money—marry money.’

‘She is a beautiful woman,’ continued the Tempter; ‘she loves you, after a fashion. You love her, after a fashion. You know each other. She is so rich that she will not care about the loss of your fortune. It is all nonsense about brother and sister. Marry her—marry the Lady Frances, who is waiting for you.’

I let these voices go on for half an hour or so. It was rather amusing, I remember, to feel one’s self tempted; but, of course, one had to stop it some time. So I put down my foot, and said resolutely: ‘No.’ Upon which the two voices became silent, and spoke no more.