Book 2 - Chapter 14. The Letters

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_ BOOK II CHAPTER XIV. THE LETTERS

Having breakfasted, read his newspaper, and smoked his pipe (and still no sign of the missing 'Bias), Cai brushed his hat and set forth to pay a call on Mr Peter Benny.

This Mr Peter Benny--father of Mr Shake Benny, whose acquaintance we have already made--was a white-haired little man who had known many cares in life, but had preserved through them all a passionate devotion to literature and an entirely simple heart: and these two had made life romantic for him, albeit his cares had been the very ordinary ones of a poor clerk with a long family of boys and girls, all of whom--his wife aiding--he had brought up to fear the Lord and seen fairly started in life. Towards the close of the struggle Fortune had chosen to smile, rewarding him with the stewardship of Damelioc, an estate lying beside the river some miles above Troy. This was a fine exchange against a beggarly clerkship, even for a man so honest as Peter Benny. But he did not hold it long. On the death of his wife, which happened in the fifth year of their prosperity, he had chosen to retire on a small pension, to inhabit again (but alone) the waterside cottage which in old days the children had filled to overflowing, and to potter at literary composition in the wooden outhouse where he had been used, after office hours, to eke out his 52 pounds salary by composing letters for seamen.

He retained his methodical habits, and Cai found him already at work in the outhouse, and thoroughly enjoying a task which might have daunted one of less boyish confidence. He was, in fact, recasting the 'Fasti' of Ovid into English verse, using for that purpose a spirited, if literal, prose translation (published by Mr Bohn) in default of the original, from which his ignorance of the Latin language precluded him. For a taste:--

"What sea, what land, knows not Arion's fame!
The rivers by his song were turned as stiff as glass:
The hungry wolf stood still, the lamb did much the same--
Pursuing and pursued, producing an _impasse_--"

But while delighting in this labour, Mr Benny was at any time ready, nay eager, for a chat. At Cai's entrance he pushed up his spectacles and beamed.

"Ah, good morning, Captain Hocken!--Good morning! I take this as really friendly. . . . You find me wooing the Muses as usual; up and early. Some authors, sir,--not that I dare claim that title,--have found their best inspirations by the midnight oil, even in the small hours. Edgar Allan Poe--an irregular genius--you are acquainted with his 'Raven,' sir?--"

"His what?"

"His 'Raven'; a poem about a bird that perched itself upon a bust and kept saying 'Nevermore,' like a parrot."

Cai winced. "On a bust, did you say? Whose bust?"

"A bust of Pallas, sir, in the alleged possession of Mr Poe himself: Pallas being otherwise Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom, usually represented with an Owl."

"I don't know much about birds," confessed Cai, reduced to helplessness by this erudition. "And I don't know anything about poetry, more's the pity--having been caught young and apprenticed to the sea."

"And nothing to be ashamed of in that, Captain Hocken!"

'The sea, the sea, the open sea--
The blue, the fresh, the ever free.'

"I daresay you've often felt like that about it, as did the late Barry Cornwall, otherwise Bryan Waller Procter, whose daughter, the gifted Adelaide Anne Procter, prior to her premature decease, composed 'The Lost Chord,' everywhere so popular as a cornet solo. It is one of the curiosities of literature," went on Mr Benny confidentially, "that the author of that breezy (not to say briny) outburst could not even cross from Dover to Calais without being prostrated by _mal de mer_; insomuch that his good lady (who happened, by the way, to survive him for a number of years, and, in fact, died quite recently), being of a satirical humour, and herself immune from that distressing complaint, used--as I once read in a magazine article--to walk up and down the deck before him on these occasions, mischievously quoting his own verses,--"

'I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be:
I love (O, _how_ I love!) to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,'

"_et coetera_. You'll excuse my rattling on in this fashion. So few people in Troy take an interest in literature: and it has so many by-ways!"

"I'm afraid," confessed Cai, more and more bewildered, "that my education was pretty badly neglected, 'specially in literature, though for some reason or another I'm not bad at spellin'. But, puttin' spellin' aside, that's just why I've come to you. I want you to help me with a letter, if you will."

"Why, of course I will," instantly responded Mr Benny, pushing his translations of the 'Fasti' aside and producing from a drawer some sheets of fresh paper.

"As a matter of business, you understand?"

"If you insist; though it will be a pleasure, Captain Hocken, I assure you."

"It's--it's a bit difficult," stammered Cai gratefully. "In fact, it's not an ordinary sort of letter at all."

Mr Benny, patting his paper into a neat pad, smiled professionally. The letter might not be an ordinary sort of letter; but he had in old days listened some hundreds of times to this exordium.

"It's--well, it's a proposal of marriage," said Cai desperately; and in despite of himself he started as he uttered the word.

Mr Benny, having patted up the pad to his satisfaction, answered with a nod only, and dipped his pen in the inkpot.

"I don't think you heard me," ventured Cai. "It's a proposal of marriage."

"Fire away!" said Mr Benny. "Just dictate, of give me the main bearings, and I'll fix it up."

"But look here--it's a proposal of marriage, I tell you!"

"I've written scores and scores. . . . For yourself, is it?"

This simple and indeed apparently necessary question hit Cai between wind and water.

"I want it written in the first person, of course--if that's what you mean?"

Again Mr Benny nodded, "I see," said he. "You're here on behalf of a friend, who is too bashful to come on his own account."

"You may put it at that," agreed Cai, greatly relieved. "I told you the case was a bit out o' the common!"

Mr Benny's smile was still strictly professional. "It's not outside of my experience, sir; so far, at any rate. May I take your friend to be of your own age, more or less?"

Cai nodded. "You're pretty quick at guessin', I must say."

"A trifle rusty, I fear, for want of practice. . . . But it will come back. . . Now for the lady. Spinster or widow?"

"Does that matter?"

"It helps, in a letter."

"We'll put it, then, as she's a widow."

"Age? . . . There, there! I'm not asking you to be definite, of course: but to give me a little general guidance. For instance, would she be about your friend's age? Or younger, shall we say?"

"Younger."

"Considerably?"

"I don't see as you need lay stress on that."

"You may be sure I shall not," said Mr Benny, jotting down "Younger, considerably" on his writing pad. "Moreover we can tone down or remove anything that strikes you as unhappily worded in our first draft. Trade, profession, or occupation, if any?" Seeing that Cai hesitated, "The more candid your friend is, between these four walls," added Mr Benny, extracting a hair from his pen, "the more persuasive we are likely to be."

"You may set down that she keeps a farm."

"Independent means?"

"Well, yes, as it happens. Not that--"

"To be sure--to be sure! When the affections are engaged, that doesn't weigh. Not, at any rate, with your friend. Still it may influence what I will call, Captain Hocken, the style of the approach. Style, sir, has been defined by my brother, Mr Joshua Benny--You may have heard of him, by the way, as being prominently connected with the London press. . . . No? A man of remarkable talent, though _I_ say it. They tell me that for lightness of touch in a Descriptive Middle, it would be hard to find his match in Fleet Street. . . . As I was saying, sir, my brother Joshua has defined style as the art of speaking or writing with propriety, whatever the subject. By propriety, sir, he means what is ordinarily termed appropriateness. Impropriety, in the sense of indelicacy, is out of the question in--a--a communication of this kind. Strict appropriateness, on the other hand, is not always easy to capture. May I take it that your friend has--er--enjoyed a seafaring past?"

Cai gazed blankly at him for a short while, and broke into a simple hearty laugh.

"Why, of course," said he, "you're thinking of my friend 'Bias Hunken! I almost took ye for a conjuror, first-along--upon my word I did! But once I get the drift o' your cunning, 'tis easy as easy." He gazed at Mr Benny and winked knowingly.

"You may tell me, if you please," replied Mr Benny, himself somewhat mystified, but playing for safety. "You may tell me, of course, that 'tis not Captain Hunken but another man altogether: as different from Captain Hunken as you might be, for instance."

Cai started. He was not good at duplicity, but managed to parry the suggestion. "We'll suppose it _is_ my friend, 'Bias," said he; "though 'Bias would be amused if he heard it."

"Very well--very well indeed!" Mr Benny laid down his pen, rubbed his hands softly, and picked up the pen again. "Now we can get to work. . . . '_Honoured Madam_'--Shall we begin with 'Honoured Madam'? Or would you prefer something a trifle more--er--impassioned? Perhaps we had better open--er--warily--if I may advise, and (so to speak) warm to our subject. . . . There is an art, Captain Hocken, even in composing and inditing a proposal of marriage. . . . 'Honoured Madam--You will doubtless be surprised by the purport of this letter--' Will she be surprised, by the way?"

"Cert'nly," Cai answered. "We agreed this is from 'Bias, remember."

"Yes, yes. . . . She will like it to be supposed that she's surprised, any way. All ladies do. '_--as by the communication I find myself impelled to make to you._' I word it thus to suggest that you--that Captain Hunken, rather--cannot help himself: that the lady has made, in the most literal sense, a conquest. A feeling of triumph, sir, is in the female breast, whether of maiden or widow, inseparably connected with the receipt of such a communication. Without asking Captain Hunken's leave--eh?--we will flatter that feeling a little--and portray him as the victim of this particular lady's bow and spear. A figurative expression."

"Oh!" said Cai, who had begun to stare. "Well, go on."

"'_Surprised, I say; yet not (I hope) affronted; in any event not unwilling to pardon, recognising that these words flow from the dictates of an emotion which, while in itself honourable, is in another sense notoriously no respecter of persons. Love, Honoured Madam, has its votaries as well as its victims. I have never accounted myself, nor have I been accounted, in the former category_--'"

"What's a category?" asked Cai.

Mr Benny scratched out the word. "We will substitute 'case,'" said he, "and save Captain Hunken the trouble of an explanation. '_I am no longer--you will have detected it, so why should I pretend?--in the first flush of youth: no passionate boy_'--We are talking of Captain Hunken, remember."

Cai nodded. "It's true as gospel, Mr Benny. But you have a wonderful way o' putting things."

In this way--Mr Benny scribbling, erasing, purring over a phrase and anon declaiming it--Cai venturing a question here and there, but always apologetically, with a sense of being carried off his feet and swept into deep waters--in half an hour the letter was composed. It was not at all the letter Cai had expected. It threw up his suit into a high romantic light in which he scarcely recognised it or himself. But he felt it to be extremely effective. His conscience pricked him a little, as in imagination he saw 'Bias with head aslant and elbows sprawling, inking himself to the wrists in literary effort. Poor 'Bias! But "all's fair in love and war."

To his mild astonishment Mr Benny declined a fee. "If, sir, you will be good enough to accept it, as between friends?" the little man suggested timidly. "You have helped me to pass a very pleasant morning: and it will be--shall I say?--something of a bond between us if, in the event, our joint composition should prove to have been instrumental in forwarding--er--Captain Hunken's suit."

Cai hesitated. At that moment he would have preferred conferring a benefit to receiving one. His conscience wanted a small salve. Yet to refuse would hurt Mr Benny's feelings.

"I'll tell you what!" he suggested: "We'll throw it in with another favour I meant to ask of you, and for which you shall name your terms. It has been suggested--by several, so there's no need to mention names-- that I ought to go in for public life, in a small way, of course."

"Indeed, Captain Hocken?" Mr Benny smiled to himself; he began to understand, or thought that he did. "A very laudable ambition, too!"

"The mischief is," confessed Cai, "that I have had no practice in speakin'. I couldn't, as they say, make a public speech for nuts."

"It is an art, Captain Hocken," said Mr Benny reassuringly, "and can be acquired. An ambition to acquire it sir,--though in your mind you viewed it but as a means to an end,--would in my humble view be an ambition even more laudable than that of shining on the administrative side of public life. For it is not only an art, sir, and a great one. It is well-nigh a lost art. Where, nowadays, are your Burkes, your Foxes, your Sheridans--not to mention your Demostheneses?"

"You'll understand," hesitated Cai, "that nothing beyond the School Board is in question at present. I mention this strictly between ourselves."

Mr Benny swung about upon his stool. "Listen to this, Captain Hocken-- 'Observe, sir, that, besides the desire which all men have naturally of supporting the honour of their own government, that sense of dignity and that security to property which ever attends freedom, has'--or, as I should prefer to say, _have_--'a tendency to increase the stock of the free community. Much may be taken where most is accumulated. And what is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of heaped-up luxuriance, has ever run with a more copious stream of revenue, than could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed indigence by the straining of all the machinery in the world?' That is Burke, sir--Burke: who, by the fribbles of his own day, was lightly termed the dinner-bell of the House of Commons, yet compelled the attention of all serious political thinkers--"

'Th' applause of listening Senates to command.'

"I divine your ambition. Captain Hocken, and I honour it,"

"So long as you don't mistake me," urged Cai nervously. "It don't go beyond a seat on the School Board at present. . . . But there was a hint dropped that you used, back-along, to give lessons in--I forget the word."

"Elocution," Mr Benny supplied it. "A guinea the course of six lessons was my old charge. Shall we say to-morrow, at eleven sharp?"

"So be it," Cai agreed. "The sooner the better--I've to catch up the lee-way of three-quarters of a lifetime."

When Cai had folded the draft of his letter, bestowed it in his breast-pocket, and taken his departure, Mr Benny drew out his watch. It yet wanted a full hour of dinner-time. He rearranged the papers on his desk and resumed work upon the 'Fasti':--

"The hound beside the hare held consort in the shade,
The hind, the lioness, upon the self-same rock,
The too loquacious crow--"

Here some one knocked at the door.

"Come in!" called Mr Benny.

The door opened. The visitor was Captain Hunken.

"Good mornin'."

"Ah! Good morning, sir!"

"Busy?"

"Dallying, sir,--dallying with the Muses. That is all my business nowadays."

"I looked in," said 'Bias, laying down his hat, "to ask if you would do me a small favour."

"You may be sure of it, Captain Hunken: that is, if it should lie in my power."

'Bias nodded, somewhat mysteriously. "You bet it does: though, as one might say, it don't lie azackly inside the common. I want a letter written."

"Yes?"

"It ain't, as you might put it, an ordinary letter either. It's,--well, in fact, it's a proposal of marriage!"

Mr Benny rubbed the back of his head gently. "I have written quite a number in my time, Captain Hunken. . . . Is it--if I may put it delicately--in the first person, sir?"

"She's the first person--" began 'Bias, and came to a halt. "Does that matter," he asked, "so long as I describe the parties pretty accurate?"

"Not a bit," Mr Benny assured him. "A friend, shall we say?"

"That's right," 'Bias nodded solemnly.

"And the lady?--spinster or widow?"

"Widow."

"Oh!"

"Eh?"

"Nothing. . . . I was considering. One has to collect a few data, you understand,--in strict confidence, of course. . . . Trade, profession, or occupation?"

"Whose?"

"Well, your friend's, to start with."

"Is that necessary?"

"It will help us to be persuasive." Seeing that 'Bias still hesitated, Mr Benny went on. "May I take it, for instance, that one may credit him, as a friend of yours, with a seafaring past?"

"I do believe," responded 'Bias with a slow smile after regarding Mr Benny for some seconds, "as you're thinkin' of Cai Hocken?"

Mr Benny laughed. "And yet it would not be so tremendous a guess,-- hey?--seeing what friends you two are."

"It won't do no harm," allowed 'Bias after pondering a while, "if you took it to be Cai Hocken; though, mind you, I don't say as you're right."

"That's understood. . . . Now for the lady's occupation?"

"Well . . . you might make it farmin'--for the sake of argument."

"Now I wonder," thought Mr Benny to himself, "_which_ of these two is lying." Aloud he began, setting pen to paper and repeating as he wrote, "'_Honoured Madam,_'--you don't think that too cold?"

"Why, are you able to start already?" exclaimed 'Bias in unfeigned amazement.

"I like to catch an inspiration as it springs to my brain," Mr Benny assured him. "We'll correct as we go on." _

Read next: Book 2: Chapter 15. Palmerston's Genius

Read previous: Book 2: Chapter 13. Fair Challenge

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