"But it stands to reason that I can't. G.o.d, when He gave me power of mind, gave you power of body."

"And a little common sense along with it, my friend. I'm generally able to see my way, big as I look. Come; what's the good of arguing.

You're quick at writing, I know, and there's the paper."

Then George Robinson did write. The words were as follows;--"I renounce the hand and heart of Maryanne Brown. I renounce them for ever.--George Robinson."

On the night of that day, while the hammers were still ringing by gaslight in the unfinished shop; while Brown and Jones were still busy with the goods, and Mrs. Jones was measuring out to the shop-girls yards of Magenta ribbon, short by an inch, Robinson again walked down to the bridge. "The bleak wind of March makes me tremble and shiver," said he to himself;--"but, 'Not the dark arch or the black flowing river.'"

"Come, young man, move on," said a policeman to him. And he did move on.

"But for that man I should have done it then," he whispered, in his solitude, as he went to bed.

CHAPTER IX.

SHOWING HOW MR. ROBINSON WAS EMPLOYED ON THE OPENING DAY.

"Et tu, Brute?" were the words with which Mr. Brown was greeted at six o'clock in the morning on that eventful day, when, at early dawn, he met his young partner at Magenta House. He had never studied the history of Caesar's death, but he understood the reproach as well as any Roman ever did.

"It was your own doing, George," he said. "When she was swore at in that way, and when you went away and left her--."

"It was she went away and left me."

"'Father,' said she when she came back, 'I shall put myself under the protection of Mr. William Brisket.' What was I to do then? And when he came himself, ten minutes afterwards, what was I to say to him? A father is a father, George; and one's children is one's children."

"And they are to be married?"

"Not quite at once, George."

"No. The mercenary slaughterer will reject that fair hand at last, unless it comes to him weighted with a money-bag. From whence are to come those five hundred pounds without which William Brisket will not allow your daughter to warm herself at his hearthstone?"

"As Jones has got the partnership, George, Maryanne's husband should have something."

"Ah, yes! It is I, then,--I, as one of the partners of this house, who am to bestow a dowry upon her who has injured me, and make happy the avarice of my rival! Since the mimic stage first represented the actions of humanity, no such fate as that has ever been exhibited as the lot of man. Be it so. Bring hither the cheque-book. That hand that was base enough to renounce her shall, with the same pen, write the order for the money."

"No, George, no," said Mr. Brown. "I never meant to do that. Let him have it--out of the profits."

"Ha!"

"I said in a month,--if things went well. Of course, I meant,--well enough."

"But they'll lead you such a life as never man pa.s.sed yet. Maryanne, you know, can be bitter; very bitter."

"I must bear it, George. I've been a-bearing a long while, and I'm partly used to it. But, George, it isn't a pleasure to me. It isn't a pleasure to a poor old father to be nagged at by his daughters from his very breakfast down to his very supper. And they comes to me sometimes in bed, nagging at me worse than ever."

"My heart has often bled for you, Mr. Brown."

"I know it has, George; and that's why I've loved you and trusted you. And now you won't quarrel with me, will you, though I have a little thrown you over like?"

What was Robinson to say? Of course he forgave him. It was in his nature to forgive; and he would even have forgiven Maryanne at that moment, had she come to him and asked him. But she was asleep in her bed, dreaming, perchance, of that big Philistine whom she had chosen as her future lord. A young David, however, might even yet arise, who should smite that huge giant with a stone between the eyes.

Then did Mr. Brown communicate to his partner those arrangements as to grouping which his younger daughter had suggested for the opening of the house. When Robinson first heard that Maryanne intended to be there, he declared his intention of standing by her side, though he would not deign even to look her in the face. "She shall see that she has no power over me, to make me quail," he said. And then he was told that Brisket also would be there; Maryanne had begged the favour of him, and he had unwillingly consented. "It is hard to bear," said Robinson, "very hard. But it shall be borne. I do not remember ever to have heard of the like."

"He won't come often, George, you may be sure."

"That I should have planned these glories for him! Well, well; be it so. What is the pageantry to me? It has been merely done to catch the b.u.t.terflies, and of these he is surely the largest. I will sit alone above, and work there with my brain for the service of the firm, while you below are satisfying the eyes of the crowd."

And so it had been, as was told in that chapter which was devoted to the opening day of the house. Robinson had sat alone in the very room in which he had encountered Brisket, and had barely left his seat for one moment when the first rush of the public into the shop had made his heart leap within him. There the braying of the horn in the street, and the clatter of the armed hors.e.m.e.n on the pavement, and the jokes of the young boys, and the angry threatenings of the policemen, reached his ears. "It is well," said he; "the ball has been set a-rolling, and the work that has been well begun is already half completed. When once the steps of the unthinking crowd have habituated themselves to move hither-ward, they will continue to come with the constancy of the tide, which ever rolls itself on the same strand." And then he tasked himself to think how that tide should be made always to flow,--never to ebb. "They must be brought here,"

said he, "ever by new allurements. When once they come, it is only in accordance with the laws of human nature that they should leave their money behind them." Upon that, he prepared the words for another card, in which he begged his friends, the public of the city, to come to Magenta House, as friends should come. They were invited to see, and not to buy. The firm did not care that purchases should be made thus early in their career. Their great desire was that the arrangements of the establishment should be witnessed before any considerable portion of the immense stock had been moved for the purpose of retail sale. And then the West End public were especially requested to inspect the furs which were being collected for the antic.i.p.ated sale of the next winter. It was as he wrote these words that he heard that demand for the African monkey m.u.f.f, and heard also Mr. Jones's discreet answer. "Yes," said he to himself; "before we have done, ships shall come to us from all coasts; real ships. From Tyre and Sidon, they shall come; from Ophir and Tarshish, from the East and from the West, and from the balmy southern islands. How sweet will it be to be named among the Merchant Princes of this great commercial nation!" But he felt that Brown and Jones would never be Merchant Princes, and he already looked forward to the day when he would be able to emanc.i.p.ate himself from such thraldom.

It has been already said that a considerable amount of business was done over the counter on the first day, but that the sum of money taken was not as great as had been hoped. That this was caused by Mr.

Brown's injudicious mode of going to work, there could be no doubt.

He had filled the shelves of the shop with cheap articles for which he had paid, and had hesitated in giving orders for heavy amounts to the wholesale houses. Such orders had of course been given, and in some cases had been given in vain; but quite enough of them had been honoured to show what might have been done, had there been no hesitation. "As a man of capital, I must object," he had said to Mr.

Robinson, only a week before the house was opened. "I wish I could make you understand that you have no capital." "I would I could divest you of the idea and the money too," said Robinson. But it was all of no use. A domestic fowl that has pa.s.sed all its days at a barn-door can never soar on the eagle's wing. Now Mr. Brown was the domestic fowl, while the eagle's pinion belonged to his youngest partner. By whom in that firm the kite was personified, shall not here be stated.

Brisket on that day soon left the shop; but as Maryanne Brown remained there, Robinson did not descend among the throng. There was no private door to the house, and therefore he was forced to walk out between the counters when he went to his dinner. On that occasion, he pa.s.sed close by Miss Brown, and met that young lady's eye without quailing. She looked full upon him: and then, turning her face round to her sister, t.i.ttered with an air of scorn.

"I think he's been very badly used," said Sarah Jane.

"And who has he got to blame but his own want of spirit?" said the other. This was spoken in the open shop, and many of the young men and women heard it. Robinson, however, merely walked on, raising his hat, and saluting the daughters of the senior partner. But it must be acknowledged that such remarks as that greatly aggravated the misery of his position.

It was on the evening of that day, when he was about to leave the establishment for the night, that he heard a gentle creeping step on the stairs, and presently Mrs. Jones presented herself in the room in which he was sitting. Now if there was any human fellow-creature on the face of this earth whom George Robinson had brought himself to hate, that human fellow-creature was Sarah Jane Jones. Jones himself he despised, but his feeling towards Mrs. Jones was stronger than contempt. To him it was odious that she should be present in the house at all, and he had obtained from her father a direct promise that she should not be allowed to come behind the counters after this their opening day.

"George," she said, coming up to him, "I have come upstairs because I wish to have a few words with you private."

"Will you take a chair?" said he, placing one for her. One is bound to be courteous to a lady, even though that lady be a harpy.

"George," she again began,--she had never called him "George" before, and he felt himself sorely tempted to tell her that his name was Mr.

Robinson. "George, I've brought myself to look upon you quite as a brother-in-law, you know."

"Have you?" said he. "Then you have done me an honour that does not belong to me,--and never will."

"Now don't say that, George. If you'll only bring yourself to show a little more spirit to Maryanne, all will be right yet."

What was she that she should talk to him about spirit? In these days there was no subject which was more painful to him than that of personal courage. He was well aware that he was no coward. He felt within himself an impulse that would have carried him through any danger of which the result would not have been ridiculous. He could have led a forlorn hope, or rescued female weakness from the fangs of devouring flames. But he had declined,--he acknowledged to himself that he had declined,--to be mauled by the hands of an angry butcher, who was twice his size. "One has to keep one's own path in the world," he had said to himself; "but, nevertheless, one avoids a chimney-sweeper. Should I have gained anything had I allowed that huge monster to hammer at me?" So he had argued. But, though he had thus argued, he had been angry with himself, and now he could not bear to be told that he had lacked spirit.

"That is my affair," he replied to her. "But those about me will find that I do not lack spirit when I find fitting occasion to use it."

"No; I'm sure they won't. And now's the time, George. You're not going to let that fellow Brisket run off with Maryanne from before your eyes."

"He's at liberty to run anywhere for me."

"Now, look here, George. I know you're fond of her."

"No. I was once; but I've torn her from my heart."