By : George Payne Rainsford James (1799 - 1860)
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One of the finest characters in the world was the old English merchant. We may and have improved upon many things, but not upon that. A different spirit reigns in commerce from that which ruled it long ago, and not a better one. We are more the shopkeeper, as a celebrated but not a great man called us, and less the merchant. As a people, our commerce is more extended, but the separate transactions are smaller; and minute dealings almost always produce paltry minds. Not at all do I mean to say that the old English merchant is without his representatives; but they are fewer than in other times, both with reference to our numbers and to our extended trade.
There are many still, however, whose notions are as vast and as just as those of any of our ancestors; and amongst them, not very long ago, was a gentleman of the name of Humphrey Scriven. He was a highly-educated and naturally-gifted man, the son of wealthy and respectable parents in a class of society peculiar to England--the untitled country gentry; and he had been originally intended for the church. Circumstances, however, are to most men fate. He became acquainted, by some mere accident, with the only daughter of a rich merchant--admired, loved her, and won her love in return. He was a younger son; but, nevertheless, her father was a kind and liberal man, and he consented to their marriage upon one condition: that Mr. Scriven should abandon his intention of entering the church, and become a merchant like himself. He fancied that he had perceived in the young man a peculiar aptitude for business, and he was not mistaken. Mr. Scriven became his son-in-law, his partner, and his successor; and well did he bear up the name and honour of the house.
It was a fine thing to see him, some twenty years after his marriage, when, with the business of the day over, he sat in his splendid house in St. James's Square, surrounded by his family, and often associated with the noblest and the proudest of the land. His wife was no longer living, but she had left him four very handsome children. She had herself been remarkably beautiful, and her husband was as fine a looking man as eye could see--tall, graceful, vigorous, and possessing that air of dignity which springs from dignity of mind. From the moment that five o'clock struck, Mr. Scriven cast off all thought and care of business; for, though there were, of course, with him as with other men engaged in similar pursuits, fluctuations and changes, bad speculations, failing debtors, and wrecked ships, still his transactions were too extensive for the loss of a few thousand pounds here or there to weigh upon his mind; and, being of a cheerful and happy disposition, he spread sunshine through his dwelling.
His family, at the time of which I speak, consisted of three daughters and one son, who was born some four or five years after the youngest sister. The daughters were all lovely, kind, affectionate, and gentle in disposition, very much alike in person, and so nearly of an age that it was difficult to tell which was the eldest. There was indeed some difference in character, in point of force and vigour of reason, but the spirit and the heart were the same. Maria, the eldest, was a girl of much good sense, but of a very humble appreciation of her own qualities and advantages. She thought little of her beauty and less of her wealth, and her humility mere worldly-minded people looked upon as weakness. Isabella, the second, though neither haughty nor presuming, was of a far more decided and independent nature; but Margaret, the third, was all gentle kindness, with much less mere intellect than either of her sisters. She had sense enough and principle enough never to do anything that was wrong, but not enough worldly wisdom to guard her own interests against her affections. The son was at this time a boy of fifteen--a sharp, clever lad, who had been a good deal petted by his mother, and had been taught by circumstances to attach more importance to the possession of wealth than it deserves.
In great things Mr. Scriven seldom made mistakes; in small ones he often did; and one of his mistakes was in not looking upon trifles in education as important. Perhaps it is there alone that they really are important; for every idea received in youth has a vast development in maturity. The seed may be small and insignificant in appearance; but, once sown, it is sure to grow, and may spread to a great tree.
The father destined his boy to succeed him in his counting-house. Though very wealthy, he had no inclination that his son should spend the fruit of his ancestors' labours in idleness. He had a great idea of the dignity of commerce; and Henry Scriven was taught from his earliest years that he was to be a merchant. He was educated with that view, and early initiated into business matters. Could Mr. Scriven himself have given up his time and attention to the lad, he might have acquired, with all the practical details, great views and noble purposes; but his father's time was necessarily greatly occupied, and he also felt some doubts as to his parental fondness leaving his judgment room to act in the case of his own child. At the age of fifteen, then, he sent him to receive the rudiments of a mercantile education with the correspondent of his house at Hamburg. This correspondent was known to be a good man of business, but he was no more than that; and pinning his pupil down to small details, and accustoming him to his own limited views of commerce, he narrowed all his habits of thought, while he gave vast development to certain germs of selfishness which were in the boy's own nature. His principles were always to gain something off every transaction; never to leave a penny unproductive; to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market; to look to his pence, knowing that his pounds would take care of themselves; and, being a merchant, to regard everything with a mercantile eye. He held that no merchant should marry till he could retire from business. Indeed, he regarded marriage, like everything else, as "a transaction," and one quite incompatible with the conduct of a great commercial house. Such lessons always have their effect--the pupil sometimes going beyond, sometimes falling short of his master.
What were the impressions produced upon Henry Scriven will be seen very soon; but, in the mean time, his eldest sister, Maria, married. She made her own choice, and that without ambition having any share in it. The gentleman whom she selected was amiable, somewhat eccentric, but a man of high honour and much feeling. He was the second son of one of Mr. Scriven's oldest friends and fellow-merchants, and Maria's father had but one objection. It had been arranged that Mr. Henry Marston was to go out to India, with a sufficient capital to establish a house in relation with that of his father in London. Mr. Scriven did not like the idea of his daughter going to India at all; but he knew that people are the only judges of their own happiness; and, as Maria had made up her mind, he threw no impediment in the way. Shortly after Henry Scriven's return from Hamburg, where he staid two years, the marriage of his second sister, Isabella, took place. In this instance there could be no objection on any part, as the man she chose was just the sort of person whom such a girl might be expected to prefer. He was about ten years older than herself, good-tempered, but remarkably firm, cheerful without being merry, generous without being extravagant. His property was ample; for his father, the third baronet, had left him a large and unencumbered estate, and his mother a very considerable sum in the public funds. Thus Isabella became the wife of Sir Edward Monkton; but, as his property lay at no great distance from London, her separation from her family was not so complete as that of her sister Maria.
The youngest of the three sisters remained longer unmarried, although she was fully as attractive, both in person and manners, as her sisters. Nor was it that there was a lack of applicants for her hand; for some four or five unexceptionable men proposed to her, and were at once and steadily rejected, much to their own surprise and to that of the lookers-on. She was so gentle, so affectionate, so easily led, so over-anxious for the happiness and welfare of others, that everybody had supposed her heart would be carried at the first assault. Perhaps, indeed, it was, and this might be the cause of her remaining single to the age of twenty-four.
There was at that time moving in the highest ranks of English society a Sir John Fleetwood, who realized completely the idea of "a man of wit and pleasure about town." He had served with some distinction in the army, though he had not seen more than thirty summers; was very handsome, very lively, with a smart repartee always ready, a slightly supercilious air towards all men but his own choice companions, and a manner most engaging to all women whom he thought it worth his while to please. He had towards them an easy familiarity which did not in the least savour of vulgar impertinence--a constant display of little attentions, which seemed to show that the person who received them was occupying all his thoughts--a protecting kindness of tone, with a musical voice, and a habit of speaking low. He danced with Margaret the first time she ever appeared at a large party; he danced with her again, and then he obtained an introduction to her father. Mr. Scriven received him coldly, much to the poor girl's mortification--it might almost, indeed, be called repulsively; and as he saw that Margaret was not only surprised by his unusual demeanour to her handsome partner, but more vexed than he could have desired, her father judged it best to explain his motives at once.
"You were astonished, my love," he said, as they were driving home, "at my coolness towards Sir John Fleetwood; but I do not wish to encourage any intimacy between him and any of my family, and I wish to make him feel at once that it cannot be. I know him, Margaret, to be a bad man, as well as an imprudent man; and I should be incurring too great a responsibility were I to suffer him to visit at my house. He has had every advantage in life--family, fortune, education--and he has misused them all."
Margaret was silent for a moment or two; but then she said--
"How do you wish me then to behave to him when we meet, as must often be the case, I suppose? He will certainly ask me to dance, and then I shall not know how to act after what you have said."
"The customs of society, my dear child, will prevent your refusing to dance with him, unless engaged to another," her father replied; "but I should wish you to be as often engaged as possible, and not to suffer any approach to intimacy that you can avoid."
Margaret to the best of her abilities followed the directions of her father; but she met Sir John Fleetwood often--she danced with him often; and, with the best intentions in the world, what between nervous doubts as to how she should behave on her part, and skill, boldness, and experience upon his, he did not want opportunities of making progress in her regard. Margaret therefore remained unmarried, and reached her twenty-fourth year single, but less blessed than she might well have expected to be.
Two days after her birthday, her father went out to ride in Hyde Park; his horse took fright, ran away, and threw him. Mr. Scriven was brought home little more than an hour after he had set out, with a compound fracture of the thigh. The surgeons said that, with his strong constitution and equable temper, there was no danger; and Mr. Scriven's spirits did not in the least give way. Three or four days after, however, mortification appeared; and he then with perfect calmness informed the medical men that he felt his life was drawing to a close. They endeavoured to persuade him that such was not the case, but there are internal sensations not to be mistaken; and Mr. Scriven sent for his lawyer, and a young gentleman of the name of Hayley, who had been placed in his counting-house some seven or eight years before, by highly respectable but not wealthy relations. Mr. Hayley had conducted himself remarkably well, and had risen to be the chief clerk of Mr. Scriven's house.
He approached the great merchant's bedside with looks of sorrowful concern; and Mr. Scriven, after shaking hands with him kindly, said--
"I have sent for you, my young friend, to give you a little testimony both of my gratitude for various services, and of my confidence in your character. I am dying, Hayley, though the surgeons say not; and if I die at present, Henry, my son, is not yet old enough to manage entirely such large concerns as must fall into his hands. You are acquainted with all the details. I owe you a good deal for your care, attention, and zeal in my service; and I do not think I can either recompense you better, or do my son a greater service, than by leaving you an eighth share of the business, which was that portion bestowed upon me at my marriage. There is only one observation I have to make, and do not suppose it to imply censure, but merely warning. Though born of a race of gentlemen, it is very necessary for you to remember that you are especially a merchant. To that consideration you should sacrifice much, and it you should sacrifice to nothing. Your education at a public school has given you several acquaintances of a higher class of society than our own, and some of very expensive habits, I am told. Friendships are too valuable to be given up; but no examples are worthy of being followed but those of honour, virtue, and truth."
"I can assure you, sir," replied Hayley, "I have preserved none of my school acquaintances of a higher rank than my own, except that of Lord Mellent, son of the Earl of Milford. We were first at a private school together, then at Eton, in the same form; and it would, I acknowledge, be a most painful sacrifice to give up his friendship. With greater means than myself, he is of course able to maintain a much more expensive style of living; but I trust you have never observed anything in me which should induce you to suppose I affect to rival him, or even to join him, in any extravagance. However, I feel as deeply indebted to you for your advice as even for your kind intentions towards me. The one shall be remembered as a guide to my conduct; and I do still hope and pray that it may be long, very long, before the latter receives execution."
Perhaps, had Mr. Scriven been at all a suspicious man, he might have thought his protégé's reply too neat and rounded; but ill as he was, and by nature generous in his appreciation of other men's motives, he was well satisfied. His anticipations, however, regarding his own fate, were but too surely realized. Three days after this conversation his eyes were closed for ever; and his son succeeded to a large property, and found himself at the head of a firm hardly rivalled by any in the world. With the habits of thought which he had acquired, the possession of so much wealth, and of such vast means of increasing it, served to close rather than open the heart.
He felt an awful responsibility of getting money upon him, and of preserving what he had got; and all his first acts indicated sufficiently what would be his future course. Those who were observers of human nature remarked, "If young Scriven is so close and grasping as a mere lad, what will he be as age creeps upon him?" And those who had perhaps calculated upon gaining some advantages over the son which they had not been able to obtain over the father, soon gave up the attempt and regretted the change.
Henry Scriven's first step was to discharge all his father's old servants, and to pay all legacies, though he did not scruple to say that he thought his sisters had been somewhat too liberally provided for. He then sold the house in St. James's Square, as requiring a larger establishment than was necessary for a young man; and he retired to a lodging in Brook Street, comfortable enough, but greatly within his means. He was much annoyed at the bequest of an eighth share of his father's business to Mr. Hayley; but he took advantage of all that gentleman's knowledge; and Hayley, soon by mild, almost timid manners, and active services, contrived to ingratiate himself as far as possible with a not very generous person.
In the mean time Margaret, viewing with wonder and disapproval all her brother's conduct, retired for three months to the house of her sister Isabella, and then went for some time on a visit to a friend. Before she returned, a letter announced to Mr. Scriven and Lady Monkton, that their sister was about to bestow her hand upon Sir John Fleetwood; and as soon as she came back to London, the baronet pressed eagerly for the consummation of his happiness. Isabella, with knowledge of the world and strong good sense, saw, as her father had seen, unanswerable objections to the marriage, and she urged them strongly, though kindly, upon her sister's attention; but she soon found that to urge them was labour in vain. Margaret admitted that she knew her lover had been what was then, and still is, called a gay man, and, moreover, an extravagant one; but she assured her friends that he was reformed in both respects and that she looked upon it as a duty to aid as far as was in her power to complete the happy change. Lady Monkton wisely abandoned the task of opposition, and hoped, but did not believe, that the reformation would last. Mr. Scriven attached himself to one object: to ensure that his sister's large fortune should be settled upon herself; and in this he would probably have succeeded, if Margaret would have consented even for a few short days not to see her lover, or would have steadily referred all matters of business to her brother. Unfortunately, however, Margaret had lost confidence in him who was now really striving for her good; and she would not trust to his generosity, while she was inclined to place the fullest reliance on one whose selfishness was only of a more sparkling kind. All that Mr. Scriven could accomplish was to have seven hundred a-year and a house settled upon his sister, though she brought her husband three thousand per annum; but that small sum he took care so to tie up, that no after weakness on her own part could deprive her of at least a moderate independence. Sir John Fleetwood, after the deed was signed, laughed with a gay companion, and observed, that Harry Scriven was the best man of business in England; and on the following day Margaret became his wife. The after fate of all the family shall be briefly told in the succeeding chapter.
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