Kitabı oku: «A Man from the North», sayfa 11

CHAPTER XXVI

It was the morning of Boxing Day, frosty, with a sky of steel grey; the streets were resonant under the traffic.

Richard had long been anticipating the advent of the New Year, when new resolutions were to come into force. A phrase from a sermon heard at Bursley stuck in his memory: Every day begins a new year. But he could not summon the swift, courageous decision necessary to act upon that adage. For a whole year he had been slowly subsiding into a bog of lethargy, and to extricate himself would, he felt, need an amount of exertion which he could not put forth unless fortified by all the associations of the season for such feats, and by the knowledge that fellow-creatures were bracing themselves for a similar difficult wrench.

Now that he looked back upon them, the fourteen months which had elapsed since Adeline's departure seemed to have succeeded one another with marvellous rapidity. At first he had chafed under the loss of her, and then gradually and naturally he had grown used to her absence. She wrote to him, a rather long letter, full of details about the voyage and the train journey and her uncles' home; he had opened the envelope half expecting that the letter might affect him deeply; but it did not; it struck him as a distinctly mediocre communication. He sent a reply, and the correspondence ended. He did not love her, probably never had loved her. A little sentiment: that was all. The affair was quite over. If it had been perhaps unsatisfactory, the fault was not his. A man, he reflected, cannot by taking thought fall in love (and yet this was exactly what he had attempted to do!), and that in any case Adeline would not have suited him. Still, at moments when he recalled her face and gestures, her exquisite feminality, and especially her fine candour at their parting, he grew melancholy and luxuriously pitied himself.

At the commencement of the year which was now drawing to a close he had attacked the art of literature anew, and had compassed several articles; but as one by one they suffered rejection, his energy had dwindled, and in a short time he had again entirely ceased to write. Nor did he pursue any ordered course of study. He began upon a number of English classics, finishing few of them, and continued to consume French novels with eagerness. Sometimes the French work, by its neat, severe effectiveness, would stir in him a vague desire to do likewise, but no serious sustained effort was made.

In the spring, when loneliness is peculiarly wearisome, he had joined a literary and scientific institution, for young men only, upon whose premises it was forbidden either to drink intoxicants or to smoke tobacco. He paid a year's subscription, and in less than a fortnight loathed not only the institution but every separate member and official of it. Then he thought of transplanting himself to the suburbs, but the trouble of moving the library of books which by this time he had accumulated deterred him, as well as a lazy aversion for the discomforts which a change would certainly involve.

And so he had sunk into a sort of coma. His chief task was to kill time. Eight hours were due to the office and eight to sleep, and eight others remained to be disposed of daily. In the morning he rose late, retarding his breakfast hour, diligently read the newspaper, and took the Park on the way to business. In the evening, as six o'clock approached, he no longer hurried his work in order to be ready to leave the office immediately the clock struck. On the contrary, he often stayed after hours when there was no necessity to stay, either leisurely examining his accounts, or gossiping with Jenkins or one of the older clerks. He watched the firm's welfare with a jealous eye, offered suggestions to Mr. Curpet which not seldom were accepted, and grew to be regarded as exceptionally capable and trustworthy. He could divine now and then in the tone or the look of the principals (who were niggardly with praise) an implicit trust, mingled – at any rate, in the case of the senior partner – with a certain respect. He grew more sedate in manner, and to the office boys, over whom he had charge, he was even forbidding; they disliked him, finding him a martinet more strict and less suave than Mr. Curpet himself. He kept them late at night sometimes without quite sufficient cause, and if they showed dissatisfaction, told them sententiously that boys who were so desperately anxious to do as little as they could would never get on in the world.

Upon leaving the office he would stroll slowly through Booksellers' Row and up the Strand, with the gait of a man whose time is entirely his own. Once or twice a week he dined at one of the foreign restaurants in Soho, prolonging the meal to an unconscionable length, and repairing afterwards to some lounge for a cigar and a liqueur. He paid particular attention to his dress, enjoying the sensation of wearing good clothes, and fell into a habit of comparing his personal appearance with that of the men whom he rubbed shoulders with in fashionable cafés and bars. His salary sufficed for these petty extravagances, since he was still living inexpensively in one room at Raphael Street; but besides what he earned, his resources included the sum received from the estate of William Vernon. Seventy pounds of this had melted in festivities with Adeline, two hundred pounds was lent upon mortgage under Mr. Curpet's guidance, and the other fifty was kept in hand, being broken into as infrequent occasion demanded. The mortgage investment did much to heighten his status not only with the staff but with his principals.

Seated in a wine-room or lager-beer hall, meditatively sipping from glass or tankard, and savouring a fragrant cigar, he contrived to extract a certain pleasure from the contemplation of his equality with the men around him. Many of them, he guessed with satisfaction, were in a worse or a less secure position than his own. He studied faces and made a practice of entering into conversation with strangers, and these chance encounters almost invariably left him with the impression that he had met a mental inferior. Steeping himself, as it were, in all the frivolous, lusory activities of the West End, he began to acquire that indefinable, unmistakable air of savoir-faire characteristic of the prosperous clerk who spends his leisure in public places. People from the country frequently mistook him for the young man-about-town of the society papers, familiar with every form of metropolitan chicane, luxury, and vice.

After breakfast he went out into the Park with his skates. The Serpentine had been frozen hard for more than a week, and yesterday, a solitary unit in tens of thousands, he had celebrated Christmas on the ice, skating from noon till nearly midnight, with brief intervals for meals. The exercise and the fresh air had invigorated and enlivened him, and this morning, as he plunged once more into the loose throng of skaters, his spirits were buoyant. It had been his intention to pass yet another day on the Serpentine; but a sudden, surprising fancy entered his head, flitted away, and returned again and again with such an increasing allurement that he fell in love with it: Why not commence to write now? Why, after all, leave the new beginning till the New Year? Was it true – what he had mournfully taken for granted for a month past, and so lately as an hour ago – that he lacked the moral strength to carry a good resolution into effect at any time he chose?.. In a moment, he had sworn to work four hours before he slept that night.

The decision reached, his humour became unequivocally gay. He shot forward with longer, bolder strokes, enjoying with a keener zest the swift motion and the strange black-and-white, sylvan-urban scene about him. He forgot the year of idleness which lay immediately behind him, forgot every previous failure, in the passionate exultation of his new resolve. He whistled. He sang. He attempted impossible figures, and only laughed when they ended in a fall. A woman, skating alone, stumbled to her knees; he glided towards her, lifted her lightly, raised his hat, and was gone before she could thank him: it was neatly done; he felt proud of himself. As the clock struck twelve he took off his skates, and walked in a quiet corner of the Park, deliberating intently upon the plot of a story, which fortunately had been in his mind for several months.

When he came in to dinner, he gave Lily five shillings for a Christmas box, almost without thinking, and though he had no previous intention of doing so; and inquired when she was to be married. He ordered tea for four o'clock, so that the evening might be long. In the afternoon he read and dozed. At a quarter to five the tea-things were cleared away, the lamp was burning brightly, the blinds drawn, and his writing-materials arranged on the table. He lit a pipe and sat down by the fire. At last, at last, the old, long-abandoned endeavours were about to be resumed!

The story which he was going to write was called "Tiddy-fol-lol." The leading character was an old smith, to be named Downs, employed in the forge of a large iron foundry at Bursley. Downs was a Primitive Methodist of the narrowest type, and when his daughter fell in love with and married a sceneshifter at the local theatre, she received for dowry a father's curse. Once, in the foundry, Downs in speaking of the matter had referred to his daughter as no better than a "Tiddy-fol-lol," and for years afterwards a favourite sport of the apprentice boys was to run after him, at a safe distance, calling "Tiddy-fol-lol, Tiddy-fol-lol." The daughter, completely estranged from her parent, died in giving birth to a son who grew up physically strong and healthy, but half an idiot. At the age of twelve, quite ignorant of his grandfather's identity, he was sent by his father to work at the foundry. The other lads saw a chance for fun. Pointing out Downs to him in the forge, they told him to go close to the man and say "Tiddy-fol-lol." "What dost thee want?" Downs questioned gruffly, when the boy stood before him with a vacant grin on his face. "Tiddy-fol-lol," came the response, in the aggravating, uninflected tones peculiar to an imbecile. Downs raised his tremendous arm in a flash of anger, and felled the youngster with a blow on the side of the head. Then he bade him rise. But the child, caught just under the ear, had been struck dead. Downs was tried for manslaughter, pronounced insane, and subsequently released as a harmless lunatic. The Salvation Army took charge of him, and he lived by selling "War-Cries" in the streets, still pursued by boys who shouted "Tiddy-fol-lol."

Properly elaborated, Richard opined, such a plot would make a powerful story. In his brain the thing was already complete. The one difficulty lay in the selection of a strong opening scene; that done, he was sure the incidents of the tale would fall naturally into place. He began to cogitate, but his thoughts went wool-gathering most pertinaciously, though time after time he compelled them to return to the subject in hand by force of knitted brows. He finished his pipe and recharged it. The fire burnt low, and he put on more coal. Still no suitable opening scene presented itself. His spirits slowly fell. What ailed him?

At length, an idea! He was not going to fail, after all. The story must of course begin with a quarrel between old Downs and his daughter. He drew up to the table, took a pen, and wrote the title; then a few sentences, hurriedly, and then a page. Then he read what was written, pronounced it unconvincing rubbish, and tore it up. Words were untractable, and, besides, he could not see the scene. He left the table, and after studying a tale of de Maupassant's, started on a new sheet, carefully imitating the manner of that writer. But he could by no means satisfy himself. Mrs. Rowbotham appeared with the supper-tray, and he laid his writing-materials on the bed. During supper he took up de Maupassant once more, and at ten o'clock made yet a third attempt, well knowing beforehand that it would not be successful. The plot tumbled entirely to pieces; the conclusion especially was undramatic; but how to alter it?..

He was disgusted with himself. He wondered what would happen to him if he lost his situation. Supposing that the firm of Curpet and Smythe failed! Smythe was a careless fellow, capable of ruining business in a month if for any reason Curpet's restraining influence was withdrawn. These and similar morbid fancies assailed him, and he went to bed sick with misery, heartily wishing that he had been less precipitate in his attempt to be industrious. He had a superstition that if he had waited for the New Year, the adventure might have resulted more happily.

In the night he awoke, to lament upon his solitariness. Why had he no congenial friends? How could he set about obtaining sympathetic companionship? He needed, in particular, cultured feminine society. Given that, he could work; without it he should accomplish nothing. He reflected that in London there were probably thousands of "nice girls," pining for such men as he. What a ridiculous civilisation it was that prevented him from meeting them! When he saw a promising girl in a bus, why in the name of heaven should he not be at liberty to say to her, "Look here, I can convince you that I mean well; let us make each other's acquaintance"?.. But convention, convention! He felt himself to be imprisoned by a relentless, unscaleable wall… Then he dreamt that he was in a drawing-room full of young men and women, and that all were chattering vivaciously and cleverly. He himself stood with his back to the fire, and talked to a group of girls. They looked into his face, as Adeline used to look. They grasped his ideals and his aims without laborious explanations; half a word was sufficient to enlighten them; he saw the gleam of appreciative comprehension in their eyes long before his sentences were finished…

CHAPTER XXVII

The next morning was bright with sunshine; the frost had broken, and the streets were beginning to be muddy. Richard went out, his mind empty, and dully dejected. At Sloane Street he mounted a bus, taking the one vacant front seat on the top. For a little while he stared absently at the handle of his stick. Presently a chance movement of the head made him aware that someone's eyes were upon him. He looked round. In the far corner of the seat opposite was Miss Roberts. She hesitated, flushing, and then bowed, and he responded. No further communications were possible just then (and for this, at the moment, he felt thankful), because they were separated by two young gentlemen wearing tweed caps, and collars which might have been clean once, who were arguing briskly over a copy of the "Sportsman."

For some strange reason of diffidence, Richard had not been to the Crabtree since his visit there with Adeline. He was sardonically in search of his motive for staying away when the young gentlemen with the "Sportsman" left the bus. Miss Roberts grew rosy as he got up and offered her his hand, at the same time seating himself by her side. She wore a black jacket and skirt, well worn but in good preservation, a hat with red flowers, and grey woollen gloves; and any person of ordinary discernment would have guessed her occupation without a great deal of difficulty. During the last year she had become stouter, and her figure was now full rather than slender; her features, especially the nostrils, mouth, and chin, were somewhat heavy, but she had prettily shaped ears, and her eyes, of no definable tint, were soft and tender; her reddish-brown hair was as conspicuous and as splendid as ever, coiled with tight precision at the back of her head, and escaping here and there above her ears in tiny flying wisps. The expression of her face was mainly one of amiability, but passive, animal-like, inert; she seemed full of good-nature.

"We haven't seen you at the Crabtree, lately," she said.

"You are still at the old place, then?"

"Oh, yes; and shall be, I expect. They've taken another floor now, and we're the biggest vegetarian restaurant in London."

There was a note of timid agitation in her voice, and he noticed besides that her cheeks were red and her eyes shone. Could it be that this encounter had given her pleasure? The idea of such a possibility afforded him secret delight… She, a breathing woman, glad to see him! He wondered what the other people on the bus were thinking of them, and especially what the driver thought; the driver had happened to catch sight of them when they were shaking hands, and as Richard examined the contour of the man's rubicund face, he fancied he saw there a glimmer of a smile. This was during a little pause in the conversation.

"And how have you spent Christmas?" It was Richard's question.

"At home," she answered simply, "with father and mother. My married sister and her husband came over for the day."

"And I spent mine all alone," he said ruefully. "No friends, no pudding, no nothing."

She looked at him compassionately.

"I suppose you live in rooms? It must be very lonely."

"Oh!" he returned lightly, yet seizing with eager satisfaction the sympathy she offered, "it's nothing when you're used to it. This makes my third Christmas in London, and none of them has been particularly uproarious. Fortunately there was the skating this year. I was on the Serpentine nearly all day."

Then she asked him if skating was easy to learn, because she had been wanting to try for years, but had never had opportunity. He answered that it was quite easy, if one were not afraid.

"I'm going your way," he said, as they both got off at Piccadilly Circus, and they walked along Coventry Street together. The talk flagged; to rouse it Richard questioned her about the routine of the restaurant, – a subject on which she spoke readily, and with a certain sense of humour. When they reached the Crabtree, —

"Why, it's been painted!" Richard exclaimed. "It looks very swagger, indeed, now."

"Yes, my! doesn't it? And it's beautiful inside, too. You must come in sometime."

"I will," he said with emphasis.

She shook his hand quite vigorously, and their eyes met with a curious questioning gaze. He smiled to himself as he walked down Chandos Street; his dejection had mysteriously vanished, and he even experienced a certain uplifting of spirit. It occurred to him that he had never at all understood Miss Roberts before. How different she was outside the restaurant! Should he go to the Crabtree for lunch that day, or should he allow a day or two to elapse? He decidedly prudently to wait.

He debated whether he should mention the meeting to Jenkins, and said on the whole that he would not do so. But he found Jenkins surprisingly urbane, and without conscious volition he was soon saying, —

"Guess who I came down with on the bus this morning."

Jenkins gave it up.

"Laura Roberts;" and then, seeing no look of comprehension on Jenkins' face, "You know, the cashier at the Crabtree."

"Oh —her!"

The stress was a little irritating.

"I saw her about a fortnight ago," Jenkins said.

"At the Crabtree?"

"Yes. Did she say anything to you about me?" The youth smiled.

"No. Why?"

"Nothing. We had a talk, and I mashed her a bit, – that's all."

"Ah, my boy, you won't get far with her."

"Oh, sha'n't I? I could tell you a thing or two re Laura Roberts, if I liked."

Although Jenkins' remark was characteristic, and Richard knew well enough that there was nothing behind his words, yet his mind reverted instantly to the stories connecting Miss Roberts with Mr. Aked.

"Don't gas," he said curtly. "She looks on you as a boy."

"Man enough for any woman," said Jenkins, twirling the rudiments of a moustache.

The discussion might have gone further, had it not been interrupted by Mr. Smythe, who burst suddenly into the room, as his custom was.

"Larch, come with me into Mr. Curpet's room." His tone was brusque. He had none of Mr. Curpet's natural politeness, though on rare occasions, of which the present was not one, he sought clumsily to imitate it. Richard felt a vague alarm.

With a muffler round his throat, Mr. Curpet was seated before the fire, blowing his nose and breathing noisily. Mr. Smythe went to the window, and played with the tassel of the blind cord.

"We are thinking of making some changes, Larch," Mr. Curpet began.

"Yes, sir." His heart sank. Was he to be dismissed? The next sentence was reassuring.

"In future all costs will be drawn and settled in the office, instead of being sent out. Do you feel equal to taking charge of that department?"

Richard had many times helped in the preparation of bills of cost, and possessed a fair knowledge of this complicated and engaging subject. He answered very decidedly in the affirmative.

"What we propose," Mr. Smythe broke in, "is that you should have an assistant, and that the two of you should attend to both the books and the costs."

"Of course your salary will be increased," Mr. Curpet added.

"Let me see, what do you get now?" This from Mr. Smythe, whose memory was imperfect.

"Three pounds ten, sir."

"Suppose we say four pounds ten," said Mr. Smythe to Mr. Curpet, and then turning to Larch: "That's very good indeed, you know, young man; you wouldn't get that everywhere. By Jove, no, you wouldn't!" Richard was fully aware of the fact. He could scarcely credit his own luck. "And we shall expect you to keep things up to the mark."

Mr. Curpet smiled kindly over his handkerchief, as if to intimate that Mr. Smythe need not have insisted on that point.

"And you may have to stay late sometimes," Mr. Smythe went on.

"Yes, sir."

When the interview was finished, he retraced his career at the office, marvelling that he should have done anything unusual enough to inspire his principals to such appreciation, and he soon made out that, compared with others of the staff, he had indeed been a model clerk. A delicious self-complacence enveloped him. Mr. Smythe had had the air of conferring a favour; but Mr. Curpet was at the head of affairs at No. 2 Serjeant's Court, and Mr. Curpet's attitude had been decidedly flattering. At first he had a difficulty in grasping his good fortune, thought it too good to be true; but he ended by believing in himself very heartily. In the matter of salary, he stood now second only to Mr. Alder, he a youth not three years out of the provinces. Three years ago an income of £234 per annum would have seemed almost fabulous. His notions as to what constituted opulence had changed since then, but nevertheless £234 was an excellent revenue, full of possibilities. A man could marry on that and live comfortably; many men ventured to marry on half as much. In clerkdom he had indubitably risen with ease to the upper ranks. There was good Northern stuff in Richard Larch, after all! As he walked home, his brain was busy with plans, beautiful plans for the New Year, – how he would save money, and how he would spend his nights in toil.