The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories Part 31

'Really?' exclaimed the other. 'You mean that, Mr. Starkey? Then, sir'--he leaned forward, blushing, trembling, gasping--'could I get to be--a curate?'

Topham fell back into his chair. For two or three minutes he was mute with astonishment; then the very soul of him sang jubilee.

'My dear Mr. Wigmore,' he began, restraining himself to an impressive gravity. 'I should be the last man to speak lightly of the profession of a clergyman or to urge any one to enter the Church whom I thought unfitted for the sacred office. But in your case, my good sir, there can be no such misgiving. I entertain no doubt whatever of your fitness--your moral fitness, and I will go so far as to say that with competent aid you might, in no very long time, be prepared for the necessary examination.'

The listener laughed with delight. He began to talk rapidly, all diffidence subdued. He told how the idea had first come to him, how he had brooded upon it, how he had worked at elementary lesson-books, very secretly--then how the sight of Starkey's advertis.e.m.e.nt had inspired him with hope.

'Just to get to be a curate--that's all. I should never be worthy of being a vicar or a rector. I don't look so high as that, Mr. Starkey. But a curate is a clergyman, and for my daughters to be able to say their father is in the Church--that would be a good thing, sir, a good thing!'

He slapped his knee, and again laughed with joy. Meanwhile Topham seemed to have become pensive, his head was on his hand.

'Oh,' he murmured at length, 'if I had time to work seriously with you, several hours a day.'

Wigmore looked at him, and let his eyes fall: 'You are, of course, very busy, Mr. Starkey!'

'Very busy.'

Topham waved his hand at the paper-covered table, and appeared to sink into despondency. Thereupon Wigmore cautiously and delicately approached the next thought he had in mind, Topham--cunning fellow--at one moment facilitating, at another r.e.t.a.r.ding what he wished to say. It came out at last. Would it be quite impossible for Mr. Starkey to devote himself to one sole pupil.

CHAPTER IV

'Mr. Wigmore, I will be frank with you. If I asked an equivalent for the value of my business as a business, I could not expect you to agree to such a proposal. But, to speak honestly, my health has suffered a good deal from overwork, and I must take into consideration the great probability that in any case, before long, I shall be obliged to find some position where the duties were less exhausting.'

'Good gracious!' exclaimed the listener. 'Why, you'll kill yoursel, sir.

And I'm bound to say, you look far from well.'

Topham smiled pathetically, paused a moment as if to reflect, and continued in the same tone of genial confidence. Let us consider the matter in detail. Do you propose, Mr. Wigmore, to withdraw from business at once?'

The fruiterer replied that he could do so at very short notice. Questioned as to his wishes regarding a place of residence, he declared that he was ready to live in any place where, being unknown, he could make, as it were, a new beginning.

'You would not feel impatient,' said Topham, 'if, say, two or three years had to elapse before you could be ordained?'

'Impatient,' said the other cheerily. 'Why, if it took ten years I would go through with it. When I make up my mind about a thing, I'm not easily dismayed. If I could have your help, sir--'

The necessity of making a definite proposal turned Topham pale; he was so afraid of asking too much. Almost in spite of himself, he at length spoke.

'Suppose we say--if I reside with you--that you pay me a salary of, well, 200 a year?'

The next moment he inwardly raged. Wigmore's countenance expressed such contentment, that it was plain the good man would have paid twice that sum.

'a.s.s!' cried Topham, in his mind. 'I always undervalue myself.'

It was late that evening when Starkey came home; to his surprise he found that Topham was later still. In vain he sat writing until past one o'clock.

Topham did not appear, and indeed never came back at all. The overworked corresponding tutor was taking his ease at the seaside on the strength of a quarter's salary in advance, which Mr. Wigmore, tremulously anxious to clinch their bargain, had insisted on paying him. Before leaving London he had written to Starkey, apologising for his abrupt departure, 'The result of unforeseen circ.u.mstances.' He enclosed six penny stamps in repayment of a sum lent, and added--

'When I think of my great debt to you I despair of expressing my grat.i.tude.

Be a.s.sured, however, that the name of Starkey will always be cherished in my remembrance.'

Under that name Topham dwelt with the retired shopkeeper, and a.s.siduously discharged his tutorial duties. A day came when, relying upon the friendship between them, and his pupil's exultation in the progress achieved, the tutor unbosomed himself. Having heard the whole story, Wigmore laughed a great deal, and declared that such a fellow as Starkey was rightly served.

'But,' he inquired, after reflection, 'how was it the man never wrote to ask why I sent no more work?'

'That asks for further confession. While at the seaside I wrote, in a disguised hand, a letter supposed to come from a brother of yours in which I said you were very ill and must cease your correspondence. Starkey hadn't the decency to reply, but if he had done so I should have got his letter at the post-office.'

Mr. Wigmore looked troubled for a moment. However, this too was laughed away, and the pursuit of gentility went on as rigorously as ever.

But Topham, musing over his good luck, thought with a shiver on how small an accident it had depended. Had Starkey been at home when the fruiterer called, he, it was plain, would have had the offer of this engagement.

'With the result that dear old Wigmore would have been bled for who knows how many years by a mere swindler. Whereas he is really being educated, and, for all I know, may some day adorn the Church of England.' Such thoughts are very consoling.

A LODGER IN MAZE POND

Harvey Munden had settled himself in a corner of the club smoking-room, with a cigar and a review. At eleven o'clock on a Sat.u.r.day morning in August he might reasonably expect to be undisturbed. But behold, there entered a bore, a long-faced man with a yellow waistcoat, much dreaded by all the members; he stood a while at one of the tables, fingering newspapers and eyeing the solitary. Harvey heard a step, looked up, and shuddered.

The bore began his attack in form; Harvey parried with as much resolution as his kindly nature permitted.

'You know that Dr. Shergold is dying?' fell casually from the imperturbable man.

'Dying?'

Munden was startled into attention, and the full flow of gossip swept about him. Yes, the great Dr. Shergold lay dying; there were bulletins in the morning papers; it seemed unlikely that he would see another dawn.

'Who will benefit by his decease?' inquired the bore. 'His nephew, do you think?'

'Very possibly.'

'A remarkable man, that--a _most_ remarkable man. He was at Lady Teasdale's the other evening, and he talked a good deal. Upon my word, it reminded one of Coleridge, or Macaulay,--that kind of thing. Certainly most brilliant talk. I can't remember what it was all about--something literary. A sort of fantasia, don't you know. Wonderful eloquence. By the bye, I believe he is a great friend of yours?'

'Oh, we have known each other for a long time.'

'Somebody was saying that he had gone in for medicine--walking one of the hospitals--that kind of thing.'

'Yes, he's at Guy's.'

To avoid infinite questioning, Harvey flung aside his review and went to glance at the _Times_. He read the news concerning the great physician.

Then, as his pursuer drew near again, he hastily departed.

By midday he was at London Bridge. He crossed to the Surrey side, turned immediately to the left, and at a short distance entered one of the vaulted thoroughfares which run beneath London Bridge Station. It was like the mouth of some monstrous cavern. Out of glaring daylight he pa.s.sed into gloom and chill air; on either side of the way a row of suspended lamps gave a dull, yellow light, revealing entrances to vast storehouses, most of them occupied by wine merchants; an alcoholic smell prevailed over indeterminate odours of dampness. There was great concourse of drays and waggons; wheels and the clang of giant hoofs made roaring echo, and above thundered the trains. The vaults, barely illumined with gas-jets, seemed of infinite extent; dim figures moved near and far, amid huge barrels, cases, packages; in rooms part.i.tioned off by gla.s.s framework men sat writing. A curve in the tunnel made it appear much longer than it really was; till midway nothing could be seen ahead but deepening darkness; then of a sudden appeared the issue, and beyond, greatly to the surprise of any one who should have ventured hither for the first time, was a vision of magnificent plane-trees, golden in the August sunshine--one of the abrupt contrasts which are so frequent in London, and which make its charm for those who wander from the beaten tracks; a transition from the clangorous cave of commerce to a sunny leafy quietude, amid old houses--some with quaint tumbling roofs--and byways little frequented.