Kitabı oku: «Mr. Poskitt's Nightcaps. Stories of a Yorkshire Farmer», sayfa 9
III
Samuel Edward Wilkinson duly left school, and became, of his own express will, an apprentice to a highly respectable grocer who enlarged upon his respectability by styling himself a tea merchant and an Italian warehouseman. The people who visited the shop (which was situate in a principal street in an important sea-port town) were invariably impressed by the powder-blueness of the sign and by the red-goldness of the letters which stood out so plainly from the powder-blue. It had a cachet of its own, and the proprietor had two daughters. But Samuel Edward was then scarcely over fourteen years of age, and as his parents and the proprietor were of a distinctly Dissenting nature, his time was passed much more in stealing sugar-candy out of newly-opened boxes, and in attending prayer-meetings at the nearest chapel, than in following the good example of London 'prentices of the other centuries. In fact, by the time Samuel Edward Wilkinson was nineteen years of age, he was not merely a money-grubber, but that worst of all things – a tradesman who looks upon God Almighty and the Bible as useful weights to put under an illegal scale. And as Samuel Edward gained more of his experience in the knowledge of his fellow make-weighters, the more he began to believe less in his fellow-men – with the natural result that certain women who were not his fellows suffered.
As he grew up, Samuel Edward, naturally, had to live somewhere else. His master had no room in his house for apprentices who had approached to maturity. But, like all masters of that early-Victorian age, he knew where accommodation in a highly Christian family was to be had, and Samuel Edward found himself en famille with a middle-aged dressmaker and a pretty child whose sweet sixteenity was much more appealing than the maturer charms of his master's daughters. Samuel Edward was not without good looks, and the child fell in love with him, and remained so for longer years than she had counted upon. But Samuel Edward was as philandering in love as he was pertinacious in business, and the idea of marriage was not within his immediate purview.
"At what age do you think, a man ought to marry, Poskitt?" he said to me during one of his periodical visits to the old village, he being then about two-and-twenty.
"When he feels inclined, and means it," said I.
"Of course, Poskitt, a man should never marry unless he marries money," he continued. "For a young man in my position, now, what would you say the young woman ought to be able to bring?"
I had sufficient common sense even at that age to make no reply to this question. I let him go on, silent under his sublime selfishness.
"Don't you think, Poskitt, that it's only right that when a man marries a woman he should expect her to make a certain amount of compensation?" he said. "It's a very serious thing, is marriage, you know, Poskitt. Anybody with my ambition – which is to be a man and not a mouse, or, in other words, to pay twenty shillings in the pound, and keep myself out of the workhouse – has to look forward a good deal. Now there's a young lady that I know of – where I lodge, in fact – that's very sweet on me, but I don't think her mother could give her more than a couple of hundred, and, of course, that's next to nothing. You see, Poskitt, I want to have a business of my own, and you can't get a business without capital. And money's very hard to make, Poskitt. I think – I really think – I shall put off the idea of getting married."
"That's the very wisest thing you can do," I said. "But you'd better tell the young lady so."
"Well, you see, Poskitt," he answered, stroking his chin, "the fact is – there are two young ladies. The other one is – my cousin Keziah. Now, of course, I know Keziah will have money when her father dies, but then I don't know when he will die. If I could tell exactly when he'll die, and how much Keziah will have, I should make up my mind – as it is, I think I shall have to wait. After all, it really doesn't make such a great deal of difference – one woman is about as good as another so far as marriage is concerned, Poskitt, isn't she? The money's the main thing."
"Why don't you go and find a rich heiress, then?" I asked.
"Ah!" he replied. "I only wish I could, Poskitt! But you must remember that I've no advantages. My father's only a butcher, and trade is trade, after all. You've great advantages over me – your people own their land – you're nobs compared to what I am. But I shall make myself a man, Poskitt. There's only one thing in the world that's worth anything, and that's money. I'm going to make money."
IV
I never saw Samuel Edward Wilkinson again for a great many years – in fact, not until he came back to the village to marry his cousin Keziah. It was then publicly announced that Samuel and Keziah had been engaged since early youth – but anybody who knew anything was very well aware of the truth that the marriage was now hastened because Keziah's father was dead and had left her a thousand pounds. During those intervening years Samuel Edward had been steadily pursuing his way towards his conception of manhood. He had spent several years in London, and never wore anything in the way of head-covering but a silk hat.
"Yes, Poskitt," he said, "it's taken me a long time, but I've saved enough money at last – with Keziah's little fortune thrown in, of course – to buy my first master's business. It's a very serious thing, is business, you know, Poskitt, and so is marriage. But Keziah's a capable girl, you know, Poskitt – very capable."
As Keziah was then quite forty years of age, her capability was undoubted, but it seemed to me that Samuel Edward had been a long time making up his mind.
"And where's the young lady of the early days?" I asked him.
He stroked his whiskers and shook his head.
"Well, you know, Poskitt," he replied, "it's a very unfortunate thing that she, of course, resides in the very town where I've bought my business."
"Is she married?" I asked.
"No," he answered, "no – she's not married, Poskitt. Of course I couldn't think of marrying her when Keziah was able to put her hands on a thousand pounds. After all, everybody's got to look after Number One. It's a very anxious time with me just now, Poskitt, I do assure you. What with getting married and setting up a business, I feel a great deal of responsibility. If you're ever our way (and I expect you'll be coming to the cattle markets), call in, and I'll show you the improvements I've made. It's a very fine position, Poskitt, but it's a difficult thing in these days for a man to get his own."
V
Samuel Edward's name duly appeared in blazing gilt on the powder-blue of the old sign, and he and Keziah settled down in a suburban street in company with a handmaiden and a black-and-tan terrier. Their lives were discreet and orderly, and they went to the particular Dissenting community which they affected at least once every Sabbath Day. At eight o'clock every morning Samuel Edward repaired to business; at seven in the evening he returned home to pour out his woes to Keziah. One of his apprentices had done this; an assistant had done that; a customer had fled, leaving a bill unpaid. Keziah, who was as keen on money-making as her husband, was invariably sympathetic in these matters, which were about the only things she understood, apart from her knowledge that her thousand pounds was in the business. She and Samuel Edward were both resolved on making money.
And suddenly came a thunderstorm over their sky. The little dressmaking lady, having been formally engaged to Samuel Edward for long years, finding herself jilted, suddenly awoke to the knowledge that she had a spirit, and caused the faithless one to be served with a writ for breach of promise. And Samuel Edward's men of law, going into the matter, told him that he had no defence, and would have to pay.
Samuel Edward took to his bed, and refused to be comforted. Keziah wept, entreated, cajoled, threatened – nothing was of use. All was over, in Samuel Edward's opinion. The other side wanted the exact amount represented by Keziah's dowry – one thousand pounds. Samuel Edward lay staring at the stencilled wall-paper, and decided that life was a distinct disappointment. He would die.
Then Keziah took matters in hand. She, with the help of an astute man, paid the thousand pounds – whereupon the little dressmaker, who was still well under forty, promptly married another. And then Keziah literally tore Samuel Edward out of bed, shook him into life, and gave him to understand that from that day forward he would have to work harder, earlier, and later than he had ever done before. And Samuel Edward fell to – under a ceaseless and never-varying supervision.
VI
"I'm a warm man, you know, Poskitt," he said to me many a long year after that. "A warm man, sir! There's nobody knows except myself, Poskitt, how much I have. No, sir! Made it all, you know. Look at my business, Poskitt! – one of the biggest and best businesses in the country. Twenty different establishments. Four hundred employees. Bring my own tea from Ceylon and China in my own ships. All the result of energy, Poskitt – no sitting still with me, as you rustics do – no, sir!"
Now let us analyze what this man really was. Because Keziah literally drilled him into the pulling of himself together after his first great slap in the face, he began to amass money, and very soon so deepened his boyish instincts that money became his fetish. Money – money – money – nothing but money! He estimated the value of a man by the depth of that man's purse; he thoroughly believed, with the Northern Farmer, that the poor in a lump are bad. And at last he was a very rich man indeed – and then found, as all such men do, that he had no power to enjoy his wealth. He could travel – and see nothing, for he did not understand what he saw. He could buy anything he liked – and have no taste for it. The little dressmaker had children – he had none. And as his wealth increased, his temper grew sour. He had never read anything beyond his trade journal and his newspaper, and therefore he had nothing to think about but his money.
And so I come back to what my old friend said in his bluff Yorkshire fashion —
"Doän't think ower much about makkin' Brass! It's a good thing to mak' Brass, and a good thing to be in possession on it, but Brass is neyther here nor theer unless ye ware it on yer friends."
And whether Samuel Edward Wilkinson considered in the end of his days that he had made a man of himself, or whether he had, after all, a sneaking idea that he was little more than a mouse, I can't say. But his great idea (that he could buy so many people up ten times over and feel none the worse) had a certain pathos in that fact, that even to his dull brain there came at times the conviction that when the end came he would be as poor as any mouse that ever crept into its hole.
CHAPTER XIII
A DEAL IN ODD VOLUMES
It was baking-day at Low Meadow Farm, and the kitchen being rendered unusually hot by the fact that it was also a blazing afternoon in July, Mrs. Maidment, in the intervals of going to the oven, sat in a stout elbow-chair at the kitchen door and fanned herself with her apron. She was a comfortably built lady of at least fifty, and heat told upon her, as she had remarked several times since breakfast. Her placid, moon-like countenance, always rosy, was now as fiery as a winter afternoon's sun, and when she was not fanning herself she mopped her brow with one of her late husband's handkerchiefs, which she had taken from a drawer in the press as being larger than her own, and therefore more suitable for the purpose.
While she sat at the door Mrs. Maidment glanced at the prospect before her – at the garden, the orchard, the fields beyond where the crops were already whitening to harvest. Her thoughts were of a practical nature.
"I'm sure if Maidment can look down from Above," she murmured, "he'll say it's all in very good order. He never could abide naught that were not in proper order, couldn't Maidment. And if we only get a good harvest – "
At that moment the widow's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden clicking of the side gate. She turned and saw a strange man leading an equipage into the yard. The equipage consisted of a very small pony, which looked as if a generous feed of corn would do it good, and of a peculiarly constructed cart, very shallow in body, and closed in at the top by two folding doors – it resembled nothing so much, in fact, as a cupboard laid flat-wise and provided with wheels. As for the person who led in this strange turn-out, and at whom Mrs. Maidment was staring very hard, he was a somewhat seedy-looking gentleman in a frock-coat which was too large and trousers which were too short; there was a slight cast in his right eye, but there was no mistaking the would-be friendliness of his smile. He bowed low as he drew the pony towards Mrs. Maidment, and he removed a straw-hat and revealed a high forehead and a bald head. Mrs. Maidment stared still harder.
"Good-afternoon, ma'am," said the stranger, bowing again. "Allow me to introduce myself, ma'am, as a travelling bookseller – it's a new departure in the book trade, and one that I hope to do well in. Permit me to show you my stock, ma'am – all the newest volumes of the day by the most famous authors."
He threw back the folding-doors of his cart with a flourish and stepped aside. The July sun flashed its fierce beams on row upon row of flashily-bound, high-coloured volumes in green and scarlet and much fine gold.
"The very latest, I assure you, ma'am," said their vendor.
Mrs. Maidment fanned herself and gazed at the glory before her.
"Well, I don't know, master," she said. "I'm not one for reading myself, except the newspaper and a chapter in the Bible of a Sunday. But my daughter's fond of her book – she might feel inclined. Here, Mary Ellen! – here's a man at the door selling books."
Miss Mary Ellen Maidment, a comely damsel of nineteen with bright eyes and peach-like cheeks, emerged expectant from the kitchen. The itinerant bookseller greeted her with more bows and smiles.
"Oh, my!" exclaimed Mary Ellen, lifting up her hands. "What a lot of beautiful books!"
"Your ma said you were fond of your book, miss," said the owner of this intellectual treasure mine. "Yes, miss, this is an especially fine line. What's your taste, now, miss? Poetry?"
"I like a good piece," answered Mary Ellen.
The itinerant selected two gorgeously bound volumes, and deftly balancing them on the palm of one hand, pointed to their glories with the outstretched forefinger of the other.
"'The Complete Poetical Works of Mrs. H*ee*mans,'" he said. "A very sweet thing that, miss – one of the best articles in the poetry line." He pointed to the other. "'The Works of the late Eliza Cook.' A very superior production that, miss. It was that talented lady who wrote 'The Old Arm-Chair,' of which you have no doubt heard."
"I learnt it once at school," said Mary Ellen. "Have you got any tales?"
"Tales, miss – yes, miss," replied the vendor, setting Mrs. Hemans and Miss Cook aside, and selecting a few more volumes. "Here's a beautiful tale by the talented Emma Jane Worboise, the most famous authoress of her day."
"Is there any love in it?" asked Mary Ellen.
"My daughter," broke in Mrs. Maidment, "likes books with love matters and lords and ladies in 'em – she reads pieces of 'em to me at nights."
"That, ma'am, is the only sort I carry," said the book-proprietor. "Now, miss, just let me show you – "
In the end Mary Ellen purchased one tale which dealt with much love and many lords and ladies, and another which the seller described as a pious work with a strong love interest, and recommended highly for Sunday reading. She also bought Mrs. Hemans, because on turning over her pages she saw several lines which she thought were pretty. And while she went up-stairs to fetch her purse Mrs. Maidment asked the stranger inside to drink a jug of ale. One can imagine his sharp glance round that old farmhouse kitchen, with its lovely old oak furniture, its shining brass and pewter, its old delf-ware…
"You don't happen to have any old books that you want to clear out of the way, do you, ma'am?" he said, when he had been paid, and was drinking his ale. "I buy anything like that – there's lots of people glad to get rid of them. I've a sack full of 'em now under the cart there. Of course, they're worth nothing but waste paper price. That's what I have to sell them at, ma'am."
"Why, there's some old books in that chest there," said Mrs. Maidment, pointing to an old chest in the deep window-seat. "I'm sure I've oft said we'd burn 'em, for they're that old and printed so queer that nobody can read 'em. Let him look at 'em, Mary Ellen."
What treasures were they that the wandering merchant's knowing eyes gazed upon? He gazed upon them for some time, according to the eye-witnesses, before he spoke, examining each book with great care.
"Aye, well, ma'am," he said at last. "Of course, as you say, nobody could read them now-a-days. I'll tell you what – I'll give miss here three new books out of the cart for them, and you can pick for yourself, miss!"
Mary Ellen exclaimed joyfully – and the old books went into a sack.
It was not until the next year that a Summer Boarder from London took up temporary quarters at Low Meadow Farm. According to the account which Mrs. Maidment gave to her gossips of him he was a very quiet gentleman who, when he wasn't rambling about the fields and by the streams, was reading in the garden, and when he wasn't reading in the garden was writing in the parlour. And the books he had brought with him, she said, were more than the parson had.
One day, the Summer Boarder, rummaging in a cupboard in his bedroom, saw, on a top-shelf, an old, dust-covered book, and took it down and knocked the dust off and opened it. And then he sank in a chair, gasping. There, in his hand, lay a perfect copy of a fifteenth-century book, so rare that there is no copy of it in either the British Museum or in the Bodleian Library – no, nor at the Vatican!
He stared at it for a long time, and then, carrying it as some men would carry a rare diamond, he went down to the kitchen, where Mrs. Maidment was making plum-pies.
"This is a queer old book which I found in my cupboard, Mrs. Maidment," he said. "May I look at it?"
"Aye, and welcome, sir!" said Mrs. Maidment. "And keep it, too, sir, if you'll accept of it. Eh, we'd a lot of old stuff like that in that box there in the window-place, but last year – " And then the Summer Boarder heard the story of the travelling bookseller.
"And I'm sure, sir, it were very kind of the man," concluded Mrs. Maidment, "and I've always said so, to give Mary Ellen three new books, and bound so beautiful, for naught but a lot of old rubbish that nobody could read!"
Then the Summer Boarder went out into the garden and faced a big Moral Problem.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CHIEF MAGISTRATE
I
I suppose there never was a man in the world who was as full of pride as Abraham Kellet was on the morning of the day which was to see him made Mayor of Sicaster. That particular 9th of November, as I remember very well, was more than usually dismal and foggy – there were thick mists lying all over the lowlands and curling up the hill-sides as I drove into the town to take part in the proceeding of the day (for I was an old school-fellow of Abraham's, and he had graciously invited me to witness his election), but I warrant that to his worship-to-be no July day ever seemed so glorious nor no May-day sun ever so welcome as the November greyness. All men have their ambitions – Abraham's one ambition since boyhood had been to wear the mayoral chain, the mayoral robes, to sit in the mayoral seat, to be the chief magistrate of his adopted town, to know himself its foremost burgess, to have everybody's cap raised to him, to have himself addressed by high and low as Mr. Mayor. It was a worthy ambition, and he had worked hard for it – now that at last he was within an ace of fulfilling it his pride became apparent to everybody. It was not a vaunting pride, nor the pride which is puffed up, but the pride of a man who knows that he has succeeded. He was a big-framed, broad-countenanced man, Abraham Kellet, who put down a firm foot and showed a portly front, and after it was settled that he was to be the next Mayor of Sicaster his tread was firmer than ever and his front more portly as he trod the cobble-paved streets of the little town. I can see him now – a big, fine figure of a man of not much over fifty, his six feet of height invariably habited in the best broadcloth; his linen as scrupulously white and glossy as he himself was scrupulously shaven; his boots as shining as the expensive diamond ring which he wore on the little finger of his left hand. Decidedly a man to fill a mayoral chair with dignity and fulness, was Abraham Kellet.
I thought as I rode into Sicaster that eventful morning of the story of its new mayor's life. Like myself, Abraham was the son of a farmer, but whereas my father was a man of considerable substance, his was a poor man who had to work hard, early and late, to make a living out of a farm the land of which was poor. I have always had an idea that it was my father who paid for Abraham's schooling at Sicaster Grammar School, though it is but an idea, because he was the last man in the world to let his left hand know what his right hand did. Anyway, Benjamin Kellet was a poor man, as things go, and had a growing family to keep, Abraham being the eldest, and none of his other children got more education than the village school afforded for the customary fee of two-pence a-week. Why Abraham went from the village school to Sicaster Grammar School was because he was regarded as a very promising youth, whose education ought to be improved. The village school-master, in fact, when Abraham was twelve years old, said that he could not teach him any more – no very great thing in those days when nothing was taught but reading, writing and arithmetic, with perhaps a smattering of English history and a little grammar and geography – and that it was no use his staying any longer at the red-tiled school-house, which lay under the shadow of the church. Possibly the parson and my father (who was vicar's churchwarden for many a long year before his death) put their heads together about Abraham. However the case may have been, Abraham was sent to Sicaster Grammar School with the understanding that he was to remain there two years, when it would be time for him to be apprenticed to some trade. He made his entrance there the same day that I did – that was where I got to know him better. I had known him, of course, all along, but not intimately, because my mother had insisted on having a governess for my two sisters – both dead now, many a long year ago! – and so I had never gone to the village school, nor had I mixed much with the village boys. But when I was nine years old, my father said I had had quite enough of apron-strings, and I must go to Sicaster Grammar School, as soon as the next half began.
"To Sicaster Grammar School!" said my mother, speaking as if my father had said I was to go to the Cannibal Islands. "Why, Sicaster's six miles off! The child can't walk twelve miles a day and learn his lessons as well."
"Who wants him to?" asked my father. "He can have the little pony and phaeton and drive himself in and out. I'll buy another for you and the girls. And there's that eldest lad of Keller's – he's going, too, and he can drive with him."
"And his dinner?" said my mother.
"Give him it in a basket every day," replied my father. "And – put plenty in for two. He can share with young Kellet."
That was how I came to go to school with Abraham Kellet. I used to set off with the little pony-phaeton at a quarter to eight every morning and pick Abraham up at the end of the lane which led to his father's farm. At first he used to bring his dinner with him, but it soon became an understood thing that his dinner was in my basket – we made no pretence, and had no false ideas about it on either side. We used to jog into Sicaster with great content, put the pony and trap up at the King George and go to school. In winter we used to eat our meat pasties and our fruit pies and drink our milk in one of the class-rooms; in summer we spread our cloth under the trees on a certain knoll in the play-ground. And afternoon, school over we jogged home again as easily as we had come.
I have no great recollection of what I did at school, except that I had the usual healthy boy's dislike of mere book-learning, and was always unfeignedly glad when half-past four struck. Horses and dogs and the open air, cricket and fishing, and running after the fox-hounds when they came our way, appealed much more to me than anything else. I believe Abraham did most of my home exercises as we drove to and from school. As for himself he learned all he could – within certain limits. He would have nothing of Latin or Greek, but he slaved like a nigger at French, and during play-hours was always scheming to get into the company of the French teacher. He cared little about history, but a good deal about geography – French, arithmetic, and, above all, book-keeping were Abraham's great loves. His handwriting brought tears of joy and pride into the eyes of the writing-master; his figures might have been printed; his specimens of book-keeping would have done credit to a chartered accountant.
The reason of Abraham's devotion to these particular subjects was this – he had set his mind on being a – Draper. Not a small, pettifogging draper, to deal in cheap lines of goods, but a draper of the big sort who would call himself Silk Mercer. There stood in the centre of the market-place at Sicaster such an establishment – it was the daily sight of it which inspired Abraham's dreams. A solid, highly respectable establishment it was – though it would be thought old-fashioned now, it was considered to be something very grand then, and in its windows were set out the latest London and Paris fashions. There was a severely plain sign in black and gold over the windows under the Royal Arms, with an equally plain inscription – Paulsford and Tatham, Silk Mercers and Drapers to H.M. the Queen.
"That's where I mean to be apprenticed, Poskitt," said Abraham, as we set out one afternoon across the market-place. "That's the trade I fancy. No farming for me. Farming! Slaving all day after a plough and coming home up to your eyes in clay and as tired as a dog – and then nothing to show at the year-end! No, thank you!"
"That's not my father's life," I said.
He shook his head knowingly.
"Your father's a rich man," he said. "I know. I keep my eyes open. No – I'm going into that business."
I looked at him, trying to imagine him behind a counter, selling laces and ribbons. He was a big, heavy boy, whose clothes were always too small for him, and it seemed to me even then that it would look queer to see such big hands handling delicate things.
"That's why I give so much attention to figures and to French, you see, Poskitt," he said presently. "You can't get on in business unless you're good at figures and book-keeping, and if you can speak French you're at a great advantage over fellows who can't, because you stand a chance of being sent over to Paris to see and buy the latest fashions."
"Give me farming and a good horse and a good dog and gun!" said I.
"Yes," he said, "but you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. I've got my way to make. I shall make it. I'll be Mayor of Sicaster some day."
The first step towards Abraham's attainment of that wish came when he left the Grammar School and was duly apprenticed to Messrs. Paulsford and Tatham. He was then fourteen, and because of his big frame, heavy countenance, and solemn expression, looked older. I used to see him in the shop sometimes when I went there with my mother or sisters – he assumed a tailed coat at a very early age and put on the true manner with it. His term of apprenticeship, as was usual in those days, was seven years – whether his indentures were cancelled or not I do not know, but he was buyer to the firm at eighteen and manager when he was twenty-one. He became known in Sicaster. His conduct was estimable, and everybody spoke well of him. Six days of the week found him at his post from eight to eight, and on Saturdays till ten; the seventh found him diligent in attendance on the services of the Church, and in teaching in the Sunday-school. He lodged with a highly-respectable widow lady, the relict of a deceased tradesman, and he was never known to pay anything but the most decorous attention to young women.
In this way ten years of Abraham's life passed – to all outward appearance with absolute smoothness. The wiseacres of Sicaster, especially those who congregated in snug bar-parlours and smoked their pipes and drank their grog of a winter's evening, wagged their heads and said that young Kellet must be saving a pretty penny, and that he well knew what he was about. And I believe that few people, either in Sicaster itself, or in the neighbourhood, were at all surprised when it was suddenly announced in the Sicaster Sentinel that the old-established business of Messrs. Paulsford and Tatham had, because of the great age and failing health of the sole remaining partner, Mr. Jonas Tatham, been sold to their manager, Mr. Abraham Kellet, who would in future carry it on in his own name.
So now the old sign came down and a new one went up, and Abraham was no longer the watchful, ubiquitous manager, but the lynx-eyed omnipresent master. The look of power came into his eyes and manner; he trod the streets and crossed the market-place with the tread of a man who had a stake in the town. Men who knew him as an apprentice boy were quick to "sir" him; some, to cap him; he had shown that he could make money. Everybody knew now that he was going to write his name in large letters on the rolls of Sicaster, whereon there were already a good many names that were not of inconsiderable note.
