The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories Part 35

'Yes; but try to understand. Emma came up to my room at supper-time, and as usual we talked. I didn't say anything about my uncle's death--yet I felt the necessity of telling her creep fatally upon me. There was a conflict in my mind, between common-sense and that awful sentimentality which is my curse. When Emma came up again after supper, she mentioned that her mother was gone with a friend to a theatre. "Why don't you go?" I said. "Oh, I don't go anywhere." "But after all," I urged consolingly, "August isn't exactly the time for enjoying the theatre." She admitted it wasn't; but there was the Exhibition at Earl's Court, she had heard so much of it, and wanted to go. "Then suppose we go together one of these evenings?"

'You see? Idiot!--and I couldn't help it. My tongue spoke these imbecile words in spite of my brain. All very well, if I had meant what another man would; but I didn't, and the girl knew I didn't. And she looked at me--and then--why, mere brute instinct did the rest--no, not mere instinct, for it was complicated with that idiot desire to see how the girl would look, hear what she would say, when she knew that I had given her eighty thousand pounds. You can't understand?'

'As a bit of morbid psychology--yes.'

'And the frantic proceeding made me happy! For an hour or two I behaved as if I loved the girl with all my soul. And afterwards I was still happy. I walked up and down my bedroom, making plans for the future--for her education, and so on. I saw all sorts of admirable womanly qualities in her. I _was_ in love with her, and there's an end of it!'

Munden mused for a while, then laid down his pipe.

'Remarkably suggestive, Shergold, the name of the street in which you have been living. Well, you don't go back there?'

'No. I have come to my senses. I shall go to an hotel for to-night, and send presently for all my things.'

'To be sure, and on Sat.u.r.day--or on Friday evening, if you like, we leave England.'

It was evident that Shergold rejoiced with trembling.

'But I can't stick to the lie.' he said. 'I shall compensate the girl. You see, by running away I make confession that there's something wrong. I shall see a solicitor and put the matter into his hands.'

'As you please. But let the solicitor exercise his own discretion as to damages.'

'Damages!' Shergold pondered the word. 'I suppose she won't drag me into court--make a public ridicule of me? If so, there's an end of my hopes. I couldn't go among people after that.'

'I don't see why not. But your solicitor will probably manage the affair.

They have their methods,' Munden added drily.

Early the next morning Shergold despatched a telegram to Maze Pond, addressed to his landlady. It said that he would be kept away by business for a day or two. On Friday he attended his uncle's funeral, and that evening he left Charing Cross with Harvey Munden, _en route_ for Como.

There, a fortnight later, Shergold received from his solicitor a communication which put an end to his feigning of repose and hopefulness.

That he did but feign, Harvey Munden felt a.s.sured; signs of a troubled conscience, or at all events of restless nerves, were evident in all his doing and conversing; now he once more made frank revelation of his weakness.

'There's the devil to pay. She won't take money. She's got a lawyer, and is going to bring me into court. I've authorised Reckitt to offer as much as five thousand pounds,--it's no good. He says her lawyer has evidently encouraged her to hope for enormous damages, and then she'll have the satisfaction of making me the town-talk. It's all up with me, Munden. My hopes are vanished like--what is it in Dante?--_il fumo in aere ed in aqua la schiuma_!'

Smoking a Cavour, Munden lay back in the shadow of the pergola, and seemed to disdain reply.

'Your advice?'

'What's the good of advising a man born to be fooled? Why, let the ---- do her worst!'

Shergold winced.

'We mustn't forget that it's all my fault.'

'Yes, just as it's your own fault you didn't die on the day of your birth!'

'I must raise the offer--'

'By all means; offer ten thousand. I suppose a jury would give her two hundred and fifty.'

'But the scandal--the ridicule--'

'Face it. Very likely it's the only thing that would teach you wisdom and save your life.'

'That's one way of looking at it. I half believe it might be effectual.'

He kept alone for most of the day. In the evening, from nine to ten, he went upon the lake with Harvey, but could not talk; his blue eyes were sunk in a restless melancholy, his brows were furrowed, he kept making short, nervous movements, as though in silent remonstrance with himself. And when the next morning came, and Harvey Munden rang the bell for his coffee, a waiter brought him a note addressed in Shergold's hand. 'I have started for London,' ran the hurriedly written lines. 'Don't be uneasy; all I mean to do is to stop the danger of a degrading publicity; the fear of _that_ is too much for me. I have an idea, and you shall hear how I get on in a few days.'

The nature of that promising idea Munden never learnt. His next letter from Shergold came in about ten days; it informed him very briefly that the writer was 'about to be married,' and that in less than a week he would have started with his wife on a voyage round the world. Harvey did not reply; indeed, the letter contained no address.

One day in November he was accosted at the club by his familiar bore.

'So your friend Shergold is dead?'

'Dead? I know nothing of it.'

'Really? They talked of it last night at Lady Teasdale's. He died a few days ago, at Calcutta. Dysentery, or something of that kind. His wife cabled to some one or other.'

THE SALT OF THE EARTH

Strong and silent the tide of Thames flowed upward, and over it swept the morning tide of humanity. Through white autumnal mist yellow sunbeams flitted from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. The dome, the spires, the river frontages slowly unveiled and brightened: there was hope of a fair day.

Not that it much concerned this throng of men and women hastening to their labour. From near and far, by the league-long highways of South London, hither they converged each morning, and joined the procession across the bridge; their task was the same to-day as yesterday, regardless of gleam or gloom. Many had walked such a distance that they plodded wearily, looking neither to right nor left. The more vigorous strode briskly on, elbowing their way, or nimbly skipping into the road to gain advance; yet these also had a fixed gaze, preoccupied or vacant, seldom cheerful. Here and there a couple of friends conversed; girls, with bag or parcel and a book for the dinner hour, chattered and laughed; but for the most part lips were mute amid the clang and roar of heavy-laden wheels.

It was the march of those who combat hunger with delicate hands: at the pen's point, or from behind the breastwork of a counter, or trusting to bare wits pressed daily on the grindstone. Their chief advantage over the sinewy cla.s.s beneath them lay in the privilege of spending more than they could afford on house and clothing; with rare exceptions they had no hope, no chance, of reaching independence; enough if they upheld the threadbare standard of respectability, and bequeathed it to their children as a solitary heirloom. The oldest looked the poorest, and naturally so; amid the tramp of multiplying feet, their steps had begun to lag when speed was more than ever necessary; they saw newcomers outstrip them, and trudged under an increasing load.

No eye surveying this procession would have paused for a moment on Thomas Bird. In costume there was nothing to distinguish him from hundreds of rather shabby clerks who pa.s.sed along with their out-of-fashion chimney-pot and badly rolled umbrella; his gait was that of a man who takes no exercise beyond the daily walk to and from his desk; the casual glance could see nothing in his features but patient dullness tending to good humour. He might be thirty, he might be forty--impossible to decide. Yet when a ray of sunshine fell upon him, and he lifted his eyes to the eastward promise, there shone in his countenance something one might vainly have sought through the streaming concourse of which Thomas Bird was an unregarded atom. For him, it appeared, the struggling sunlight had a message of hope.

Trouble cleared from his face; he smiled unconsciously and quickened his steps.

For fifteen years he had walked to and fro over Blackfriars Bridge, leaving his home in Camberwell at eight o'clock and reaching it again at seven.

Fate made him a commercial clerk as his father before him; he earned more than enough for his necessities, but seemed to have reached the limit of promotion, for he had no influential friends, and he lacked the capacity to rise by his own efforts. There may have been some calling for which Thomas was exactly suited, but he did not know of it; in the office he proved himself a trustworthy machine, with no opportunity of becoming anything else. His parents were dead, his kindred scattered, he lived, as for several years past, in lodgings. But it never occurred to him to think of his lot as mournful. A man of sociable instincts, he had many acquaintances, some of whom he cherished. An extreme simplicity marked his tastes, and the same characteristic appeared in his conversation; an easy man to deceive, easy to make fun of, yet impossible to dislike, or despise--unless by the despicable. He delighted in stories of adventure, of bravery by flood or field, and might have posed--had he ever posed at all--as something of an authority on North Pole expeditions and the geography of Polynesia.

He received his salary once a month, and to-day was pay-day: the consciousness of having earned a certain number of sovereigns always set his thoughts on possible purchases, and at present he was revolving the subject of his wardrobe. Certainly it needed renewal, but Thomas could not decide at which end to begin, head or feet. His position in a leading house demanded a good hat, the bad weather called for new boots. Living economically as he did, it should have been a simple matter to resolve the doubt by purchasing both articles, but, for one reason and another, Thomas seldom had a surplus over the expenses of his lodgings; in practice he found it very difficult to save a sovereign for other needs.

When evening released him he walked away in a cheerful frame of mind, grasping the money in his trousers' pocket, and all but decided to make some acquisition on the way home. Near Ludgate Circus some one addressed him over his shoulder.

'Good evening, Tom; pleasant for the time of year.'

The speaker was a man of fifty, stout and florid--the latter peculiarity especially marked in his nose; he looked like a substantial merchant, and spoke with rather pompous geniality. Thrusting his arm through the clerk's, he walked with him over Blackfriars Bridge, talking in the friendliest strain of things impersonal. Beyond the bridge--

'Do you tram it?' he asked, glancing upwards.

'I think so, Mr. Warbeck,' answered the other, whose tone to his acquaintance was very respectful.

'Ah! I'm afraid it would make me late.--Oh, by the bye, Tom, I'm really ashamed--most awkward that this kind of thing happens so often, but--could you, do you think?--No, no; one sovereign only. Let me make a note of it by the light of this shop-window. Really, the total is getting quite considerable. Tut, tut! You shall have a cheque in a day or two. Oh, it can't run on any longer; I'm completely ashamed of myself. Entirely temporary--as I explained. A cheque on Wednesday at latest. Good-bye, Tom.'