Respectability has spread its leaden mantle over the whole country . . . and the man wins the race who can worship that great goddess with the most un-divided devotion.
—Leslie Stephen, Sketches from Cambridge (1865)
The bourgeoisie . . . compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of produc-tion; it compels them to introduce what it calls civil-ization into their midst, that is, to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
—Marx, Communist Manifesto (1848)
Charles’s second formal interview with Ernestina’s father was a good deal less pleasant than the first, though that was in no way the fault of Mr. Freeman. In spite of his secret feeling about the aristocracy—that they were so many drones—he was, in the more outward aspects of his life, a snob. He made it his business—and one he looked after as well as his flourishing other business—to seem in all ways a gentleman. Consciously he believed he was a perfect gentleman; and perhaps it was only in his obsessive determination to appear one that we can detect a certain inner doubt.
These new recruits to the upper middle class were in a tiresome position. If they sensed themselves recruits socially, they knew very well that they were powerful captains in their own world of commerce. Some chose another version of cryptic coloration and went in very comprehensively (like Mr. Jorrocks) for the pursuits, property and manners of the true country gentleman. Others—like Mr. Freeman—tried to re-define the term. Mr. Freeman had a newly built mansion in the Surrey pinewoods, but his wife and daughter lived there a good deal more frequently than he did. He was in his way a forerunner of the modern rich commuter, except that he spent only his weekends there—and then rarely but in sum-mer. And where his modern homologue goes in for golf, or roses, or gin and adultery, Mr. Freeman went in for earnest-ness.
Indeed, Profit and Earnestness (in that order) might have been his motto. He had thrived on the great social-economic change that took place between 1850 and 1870—the shift of accent from manufactory to shop, from producer to custom-er. That first great wave of conspicuous consumption had suited his accounting books very nicely; and by way of compensation—and in imitation of an earlier generation of Puritan profiteers, who had also preferred hunting sin to hunting the fox—he had become excessively earnest and Christian in his private life. Just as some tycoons of our own time go in for collecting art, covering excellent investment with a nice patina of philanthropy, Mr. Freeman contributed handsomely to the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge and similar militant charities. His apprentices, improvers and the rest were atrociously lodged and exploited by our standards; but by those of 1867, Freeman’s was an exceptionally advanced establishment, a model of its kind. When he went to heaven, he would have a happy labor force behind him; and his heirs would have the profit therefrom.
He was a grave headmasterly man, with intense gray eyes, whose shrewdness rather tended to make all who came under their survey feel like an inferior piece of Manchester goods. He listened to Charles’s news, however, without any sign of emotion, though he nodded gravely when Charles came to the end of his explanation. A silence followed. The interview took place in Mr. Freeman’s study in the Hyde Park house. It gave no hint of his profession. The walls were lined by suitably solemn-looking books; a bust of Marcus Aurelius (or was it Lord Palmerston in his bath?); one or two large but indeterminate engravings, whether of carnivals or battles it was hard to establish, though they managed to give the impression of an inchoate humanity a very great distance from present surroundings.
Mr. Freeman cleared his throat and stared at the red and gilt morocco of his desk; he seemed about to pronounce, but changed his mind.
“This is most surprising. Most surprising.”
More silence followed, in which Charles felt half irritated and half amused. He saw he was in for a dose of the solemn papa. But since he had invited it, he could only suffer in the silence that followed, and swallowed, that unsatisfactory re-sponse. Mr. Freeman’s private reaction had in fact been more that of a businessman than of a gentleman, for the thought which had flashed immediately through his mind was that Charles had come to ask for an increase in the marriage portion. That he could easily afford; but a terrible possibility had simultaneously occurred to him—that Charles had known all along of his uncle’s probable marriage. The one thing he loathed was to be worsted in an important business deal—and this, after all, was one that concerned the object he most cherished.
Charles at last broke the silence. “I need hardly add that this decision of my uncle’s comes as a very great surprise to myself as well.”
“Of course, of course.”
“But I felt it my duty to apprise you of it at once—and in person.”
“Most correct of you. And Ernestina ... she knows?”
“She was the first I told. She is naturally influenced by the affections she has done me the honor of bestowing on me.” Charles hesitated, then felt in his pocket. “I bear a letter to you from her.” He stood and placed it on the desk, where Mr. Freeman stared at it with those shrewd gray eyes, evidently preoccupied with other thoughts.
“You have still a very fair private income, have you not?”
“I cannot pretend to have been left a pauper.”
“To which we must add the possibility that your uncle may not be so fortunate as eventually to have an heir?”
“That is so.”
“And the certainty that Ernestina does not come to you without due provision?”
“You have been most generous.”
“And one day I shall be called to eternal rest.”
“My dear sir, I—“
The gentleman had won. Mr. Freeman stood. “Between ourselves we may say these things. I shall be very frank with you, my dear Charles. My principal consideration is my daughter’s happiness. But I do not need to tell you of the prize she represents in financial terms. When you asked my permission to solicit her hand, not the least of your recom-mendations in my eyes was my assurance that the alliance would be mutual respect and mutual worth. I have your assurance that your changed circumstances have come on you like a bolt from the blue. No stranger to your moral rectitude could possibly impute to you an ignoble motive. That is my only concern.”
“As it is most emphatically mine, sir.”
More silence followed. Both knew what was really being said: that malicious gossip must now surround the marriage. Charles would be declared to have had wind of his loss of prospects before his proposal; Ernestina would be sneered at for having lost the title she could so easily have bought elsewhere.
“I had better read the letter. Pray excuse me.” He raised his solid gold letter-knife and slit the envelope open. Charles went to a window and stared out at the trees of Hyde Park. There beyond the chain of carriages in the Bayswater Road, he saw a girl—a shopgirl or maid by the look of her—waiting on a bench before the railings; and even as he watched a red-jacketed soldier came up. He saluted— and she turned. It was too far to see her face, but the eagerness of her turn made it clear that the two were lovers. The soldier took her hand and pressed it momentarily to his heart. Something was said. Then she slipped her hand under his arm and they began to walk slowly towards Oxford Street. Charles became lost in this little scene; and started when Mr. Freeman came beside him, the letter in hand. He was smiling.
“Perhaps I should read what she says in a postscript.” He adjusted his silver-rimmed spectacles. “ ‘If you listen to Charles’s nonsense for one moment, I shall make him elope with me to Paris.’” He looked drily up at Charles. “It seems we are given no alternative.”
Charles smiled faintly. “But if you should wish for further time to reflect ...”
Mr. Freeman placed his hand on the scrupulous one’s shoulder. “I shall tell her that I find her intended even more admirable in adversity than in good fortune. And I think the sooner you return to Lyme the better it will be.” “You do me great kindness.”
“In making my daughter so happy, you do me ............