George Fenn - Eli's Children - The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family

There were bounds, though, even in those days, to the limits accorded to a gentlemanly clerk of good birth, and when Frank took to absenting himself from the office for a week at a time, matters became serious.

For the first time or two the plea of illness was accepted, but when another absence occurred, also from illness, and Mr Frank Mallow was seen by his superiors riding a showy-looking hack in the park, and was known to have given a bachelors’ party in the same week, to which several fellow-clerks were invited, it became necessary to hint to the peccant youth that the next time he was unwell, a certificate to that effect would be necessary from some well-known medical man.

Frank was ill again, so he sent in word to the office, and stayed away for another week, after which, on presenting himself, he received a warning – one which he bore in mind for a couple of months, and then his head must have once more been very bad, for there was a fresh absence, and this endured so long that Frank’s seat in the Treasury knew him no more.

“Well, it don’t matter, mother,” he said. “It was a wretched set-out, and I was sick of the eternal copying.”

“But it was such a pity, dear,” his mother said, in a tone of remonstrance.

“Pity? Stuff! Eighty pounds a year, and a rise of ten pounds annually! Not bricklayer’s wages, and all the time people think it’s such a tremendous thing to be a Treasury clerk.”

“Poor papa is so vexed and grieved, for he took such pains to get you the appointment.”

“Then poor papa must get pleased again,” said the young man, petulantly. “I cannot, and I will not, stand a clerk’s desk. I’d sooner enlist.”

“Frank!” cried his mother, reproachfully.

“Well, I declare I would, mother,” he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and walking up and down the room.

“To find freedom?” said his mother, with a smile.

“Oh! I dare say there would be discipline to attend to, and officers to obey; but there would be some change. I should not have to be tied down to a wretched writing-table, copy, copy, copy, the whole day long.”

“Change?” said Mrs Mallow, and she gazed wistfully in her son’s face.

“Yes, of course; one must have some excitement.”

He stood gazing out of the window, and did not notice the strange despairing look in his mother’s eyes, one which seemed to tell of her own weary hours – weary years, passed upon that couch, with no hope of change save that of some day sinking into the eternal rest. It was evident that she was contrasting the selfishness of her son and his position with her own, and she sighed as she closed her eyes and lay there in silence for a time, uttering no reproach.

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