The Way of All Flesh

For the first time in his life Theobald felt that he had done something right, and could look forward to meeting his father without alarm.  The old gentleman, indeed, had written him a most cordial letter, announcing his intention of standing godfather to the boy—­nay, I may as well give it in full, as it shows the writer at his best.  It runs: 

   “Dear Theobald,—­Your letter gave me very sincere pleasure, the more
   so because I had made up my mind for the worst; pray accept my most
   hearty congratulations for my daughter-in-law and for yourself.

“I have long preserved a phial of water from the Jordan for the christening of my first grandson, should it please God to grant me one.  It was given me by my old friend Dr Jones.  You will agree with me that though the efficacy of the sacrament does not depend upon the source of the baptismal waters, yet, ceteris paribus, there is a sentiment attaching to the waters of the Jordan which should not be despised.  Small matters like this sometimes influence a child’s whole future career.

“I shall bring my own cook, and have told him to get everything ready for the christening dinner.  Ask as many of your best neighbours as your table will hold.  By the way, I have told Lesueur not to get a lobster—­you had better drive over yourself and get one from Saltness (for Battersby was only fourteen or fifteen miles from the sea coast); they are better there, at least I think so, than anywhere else in England.

“I have put your boy down for something in the event of his attaining the age of twenty-one years.  If your brother John continues to have nothing but girls I may do more later on, but I have many claims upon me, and am not as well off as you may imagine.—­Your affectionate father,

   “G.  PONTIFEX.”

A few days afterwards the writer of the above letter made his appearance in a fly which had brought him from Gildenham to Battersby, a distance of fourteen miles.  There was Lesueur, the cook, on the box with the driver, and as many hampers as the fly could carry were disposed upon the roof and elsewhere.  Next day the John Pontifexes had to come, and Eliza and Maria, as well as Alethea, who, by her own special request, was godmother to the boy, for Mr Pontifex had decided that they were to form a happy family party; so come they all must, and be happy they all must, or it would be the worse for them.  Next day the author of all this hubbub was actually christened.  Theobald had proposed to call him George after old Mr Pontifex, but strange to say, Mr Pontifex over-ruled him in favour of the name Ernest.  The word “earnest” was just beginning to come into fashion, and he thought the possession of such a name might, like his having been baptised in water from the Jordan, have a permanent effect upon the boy’s character, and influence him for good during the more critical periods of his life.

I was asked to be his second godfather, and was rejoiced to have an opportunity of meeting Alethea, whom I had not seen for some few years, but with whom I had been in constant correspondence.  She and I had always been friends from the time we had played together as children onwards.  When the death of her grandfather and grandmother severed her connection with Paleham my intimacy with the Pontifexes was kept up by my having been at school and college with Theobald, and each time I saw her I admired her more and more as the best, kindest, wittiest, most lovable, and, to my mind, handsomest woman whom I had ever seen.  None of the Pontifexes were deficient in good looks; they were a well-grown shapely family enough, but Alethea was the flower of the flock even as regards good looks, while in respect of all other qualities that make a woman lovable, it seemed as though the stock that had been intended for the three daughters, and would have been about sufficient for them, had all been allotted to herself, her sisters getting none, and she all.

It is impossible for me to explain how it was that she and I never married.  We two knew exceedingly well, and that must suffice for the reader.  There was the most perfect sympathy and understanding between us; we knew that neither of us would marry anyone else.  I had asked her to marry me a dozen times over; having said this much I will say no more upon a point which is in no way necessary for the development of my story.  For the last few years there had been difficulties in the way of our meeting, and I had not seen her, though, as I have said, keeping up a close correspondence with her.  Naturally I was overjoyed to meet her again; she was now just thirty years old, but I thought she looked handsomer than ever.

Her father, of course, was the lion of the party, but seeing that we were all meek and quite willing to be eaten, he roared to us rather than at us.  It was a fine sight to see him tucking his napkin under his rosy old gills, and letting it fall over his capacious waistcoat while the high light from the chandelier danced about the bump of benevolence on his bald old head like a star of Bethlehem.

The soup was real turtle; the old gentleman was evidently well pleased and he was beginning to come out.  Gelstrap stood behind his master’s chair.  I sat next Mrs Theobald on her left hand, and was thus just opposite her father-in-law, whom I had every opportunity of observing.

During the first ten minutes or so, which were taken up with the soup and the bringing in of the fish, I should probably have thought, if I had not long since made up my mind about him, what a fine old man he was and how proud his children should be of him; but suddenly as he was helping himself to lobster sauce, he flushed crimson, a look of extreme vexation suffused his face, and he darted two furtive but fiery glances to the two ends of the table, one for Theobald and one for Christina.  They, poor simple souls, of course saw that something was exceedingly wrong, and so did I, but I couldn’t guess what it was till I heard the old man hiss in Christina’s ear:  “It was not made with a hen lobster.  What’s the use,” he continued, “of my calling the boy Ernest, and getting him christened in water from the Jordan, if his own father does not know a cock from a hen lobster?”

This cut me too, for I felt that till that moment I had not so much as known that there were cocks and hens among lobsters, but had vaguely thought that in the matter of matrimony they were even as the angels in heaven, and grew up almost spontaneously from rocks and sea-weed.

Before the next course was over Mr Pontifex had recovered his temper, and from that time to the end of the evening he was at his best.  He told us all about the water from the Jordan; how it had been brought by Dr Jones along with some stone jars of water from the Rhine, the Rhone, the Elbe and the Danube, and what trouble he had had with them at the Custom Houses, and how the intention had been to make punch with waters from all the greatest rivers in Europe; and how he, Mr Pontifex, had saved the Jordan water from going into the bowl, etc., etc.  “No, no, no,” he continued, “it wouldn’t have done at all, you know; very profane idea; so we each took a pint bottle of it home with us, and the punch was much better without it.  I had a narrow escape with mine, though, the other day; I fell over a hamper in the cellar, when I was getting it up to bring to Battersby, and if I had not taken the greatest care the bottle would certainly have been broken, but I saved it.”  And Gelstrap was standing behind his chair all the time!

Nothing more happened to ruffle Mr Pontifex, so we had a delightful evening, which has often recurred to me while watching the after career of my godson.

I called a day or two afterwards and found Mr Pontifex still at Battersby, laid up with one of those attacks of liver and depression to which he was becoming more and more subject.  I stayed to luncheon.  The old gentleman was cross and very difficult; he could eat nothing—­had no appetite at all.  Christina tried to coax him with a little bit of the fleshy part of a mutton chop.  “How in the name of reason can I be asked to eat a mutton chop?” he exclaimed angrily; “you forget, my dear Christina, that you have to deal with a stomach that is totally disorganised,” and he pushed the plate from him, pouting and frowning like a naughty old child.  Writing as I do by the light of a later knowledge, I suppose I should have seen nothing in this but the world’s growing pains, the disturbance inseparable from transition in human things.  I suppose in reality not a leaf goes yellow in autumn without ceasing to care about its sap and making the parent tree very uncomfortable by long growling and grumbling—­but surely nature might find some less irritating way of carrying on business if she would give her mind to it.  Why should the generations overlap one another at all?  Why cannot we be buried as eggs in neat little cells with ten or twenty thousand pounds each wrapped round us in Bank of England notes, and wake up, as the sphex wasp does, to find that its papa and mamma have not only left ample provision at its elbow, but have been eaten by sparrows some weeks before it began to live consciously on its own account?

About a year and a half afterwards the tables were turned on Battersby—­for Mrs John Pontifex was safely delivered of a boy.  A year or so later still, George Pontifex was himself struck down suddenly by a fit of paralysis, much as his mother had been, but he did not see the years of his mother.  When his will was opened, it was found that an original bequest of 20,000 pounds to Theobald himself (over and above the sum that had been settled upon him and Christina at the time of his marriage) had been cut down to 17,500 pounds when Mr Pontifex left “something” to Ernest.  The “something” proved to be 2500 pounds, which was to accumulate in the hands of trustees.  The rest of the property went to John Pontifex, except that each of the daughters was left with about 15,000 pounds over and above 5000 pounds a piece which they inherited from their mother.

Theobald’s father then had told him the truth but not the whole truth.  Nevertheless, what right had Theobald to complain?  Certainly it was rather hard to make him think that he and his were to be gainers, and get the honour and glory of the bequest, when all the time the money was virtually being taken out of Theobald’s own pocket.  On the other hand the father doubtless argued that he had never told Theobald he was to have anything at all; he had a full right to do what he liked with his own money; if Theobald chose to indulge in unwarrantable expectations that was no affair of his; as it was he was providing for him liberally; and if he did take 2500 pounds of Theobald’s share he was still leaving it to Theobald’s son, which, of course, was much the same thing in the end.

No one can deny that the testator had strict right upon his side; nevertheless the reader will agree with me that Theobald and Christina might not have considered the christening dinner so great a success if all the facts had been before them.  Mr Pontifex had during his own lifetime set up a monument in Elmhurst Church to the memory of his wife (a slab with urns and cherubs like illegitimate children of King George the Fourth, and all the rest of it), and had left space for his own epitaph underneath that of his wife.  I do not know whether it was written by one of his children, or whether they got some friend to write it for them.  I do not believe that any satire was intended.  I believe that it was the intention to convey that nothing short of the Day of Judgement could give anyone an idea how good a man Mr Pontifex had been, but at first I found it hard to think that it was free from guile.

The epitaph begins by giving dates of birth and death; then sets out that the deceased was for many years head of the firm of Fairlie and Pontifex, and also resident in the parish of Elmhurst.  There is not a syllable of either praise or dispraise.  The last lines run as follows:—­

   HE NOW LIES AWAITING A JOYFUL RESURRECTION
   AT THE LAST DAY. 
   WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS
   THAT DAY WILL DISCOVER.