I thought so too. I established with myself
on these occasions, the reputation of a first-rate
man of business — prompt, decisive, energetic,
clear, cool-headed. When I had got all my responsibilities
down upon my list, I compared each with the bill,
and ticked it off. My self-approval when I ticked
an entry was quite a luxurious sensation. When
I had no more ticks to make, I folded all my bills
up uniformly, docketed each on the back, and tied
the whole into a symmetrical bundle. Then I did
the same for Herbert (who modestly said he had not
my administrative genius), and felt that I had brought
his affairs into a focus for him.
My business habits had one other bright feature, which
i called “leaving a Margin.” For
example; supposing Herbert’s debts to be one
hundred and sixty-four pounds four-and-twopence, I
would say, “Leave a margin, and put them down
at two hundred.” Or, supposing my own
to be four times as much, I would leave a margin, and
put them down at seven hundred. I had the highest
opinion of the wisdom of this same Margin, but I am
bound to acknowledge that on looking back, I deem
it to have been an expensive device. For, we
always ran into new debt immediately, to the full
extent of the margin, and sometimes, in the sense
of freedom and solvency it imparted, got pretty far
on into another margin.
But there was a calm, a rest, a virtuous hush, consequent
on these examinations of our affairs that gave me,
for the time, an admirable opinion of myself.
Soothed by my exertions, my method, and Herbert’s
compliments, I would sit with his symmetrical bundle
and my own on the table before me among the stationary,
and feel like a Bank of some sort, rather than a private
individual.
We shut our outer door on these solemn occasions,
in order that we might not be interrupted. I
had fallen into my serene state one evening, when
we heard a letter dropped through the slit in the
said door, and fall on the ground. “It’s
for you, Handel,” said Herbert, going out and
coming back with it, “and I hope there is nothing
the matter.” This was in allusion to its
heavy black seal and border.
The letter was signed Trabb & co., and its
contents were simply, that I was an honoured sir,
and that they begged to inform me that Mrs. J. Gargery
had departed this life on Monday last, at twenty minutes
past six in the evening, and that my attendance was
requested at the interment on Monday next at three
o’clock in the afternoon.
Chapter 35
It was the first time that a grave had opened in my
road of life, and the gap it made in the smooth ground
was wonderful. The figure of my sister in her
chair by the kitchen fire, haunted me night and day.
That the place could possibly be, without her, was
something my mind seemed unable to compass; and whereas
she had seldom or never been in my thoughts of late,
I had now the strangest ideas that she was coming
towards me in the street, or that she would presently
knock at the door. In my rooms too, with which
she had never been at all associated, there was at
once the blankness of death and a perpetual suggestion
of the sound of her voice or the turn of her face
or figure, as if she were still alive and had been
often there.
