The Record of Nicholas Freydon Part 12

'Stealing time, Nickperry, stealing time! You an' me'll fall out, my friend, if you can't manage to keep proper working hours.

Applicatiousness is all very well, but stealing time after tea is gluttish and greedular, and must be put down with an iron hand, with an iron hand, Nickperry. Tssp! Howzashorthandgetnon?'

Before expelling the last interrogative omnibus word, he would clench one fat fist and knead the air downward with it, to ill.u.s.trate the process of putting down greediness with an iron hand.

I saw comparatively little of him, of course, owing to his preoccupation with business, his own and that of Dursley and most of its inhabitants; but we were excellent good friends, and it was rarely that he missed his Sunday morning walk round the whole place with me, when my week's work would be pa.s.sed in more or less humorous review, and the programme for the next week discussed. After this tour of inspection I generally went to church, and the afternoon I almost invariably spent in my room over the packing-case. That is a period which many people give to letter-writing, and it is queer to recall the fact that, so far as I can remember, I had written only two letters in my life up to this period--one to a Sydney bookseller, whose address I got from Mr. Perkins, and one to Mr. Rawlence, the Sydney artist, to tell him of my present position, and to say that I had made a start upon shorthand. His kindly and encouraging reply was, I think, the first letter I ever received through the post. But I now began to write letters by the score, addressed to imaginary correspondents, and based in style upon my studies of correspondence in various books. These epistles, however, all ended their brief careers under the kindling wood in Mrs. Gabbitas's kitchen grate.

'Applicatious and industrial, with bettermentatious ambitions,' Mr.

Perkins had said of me within a few moments of our first meeting, and at this period I think I justified the sense of his comment. My daily work was pleasant enough, of course, healthy and not fatiguing. Still, it was perhaps odd in a youth of my age that I should have had no desire for recreation or amus.e.m.e.nt. My study of shorthand did not interest me in the faintest degree; but I was greatly interested by my growing mastery of it, because I thought of the mastery of shorthand, as Mr. Rawlence had described it, as a very valuable means to an end, to various ends. I thought of it, in short, as the key which should open Sydney's doors to me; for, happy as my life was in Dursley, I never regarded it in any other light than as a useful preliminary to the next stage of my career. And that again, from all I have since been told, was hardly an att.i.tude proper to my years.

It certainly was not due to any conscious discontent with my life and work in Dursley. I must suppose it was the beginning of that restless temperamental itch which all through life has made me regard everything I did as no more than the necessary prelude to some more or less vague thing I meant presently to do, which should be much better worth doing. A praiseworthy doctrine I have heard it called. It may be. But I would like to be able to warn all and sundry who cultivate or inculcate it in this present century, that the margin between it and the wastefully extravagant body and soul-devouring restlessness which I sometimes think the key-note of our time--the margin is a perilously slender one.

XI

Every day the _Sydney Morning Herald_ was delivered at the Perkins's establishment, and every evening it reached the kitchen at tea-time.

Mrs. Gabbitas regarded it as a very useful journal for fire-lighting purposes, but having no other interest in it was quite agreeable to its being out-of-date by one day when it reached her hands. Thus the daily newspaper became my perquisite each evening, to be returned faithfully in the morning with the day's supply of fuel, in order that it might duly fulfil its higher and more serviceable destiny in Mrs.

Gabbitas's stove.

For quite a long time I never scanned the news columns of that really admirable newspaper. I might have thought that their perusal would have been helpful to me, especially as I cherished vague ideas of one day earning my living in a newspaper office. But, for the time, my mind was too much occupied with thoughts of another means to an end--shorthand. The longest chunks of unbroken letterpress were the leading articles. For months I never looked beyond them, and never stopped short of copying out at least one column of them, and often more, especially in those misguided early days before I awoke to the stern necessity of reading over every written line of shorthand.

I am afraid the leader-writers' eloquence and style--real and ever-present features in this journal's pages--were entirely wasted upon me. I copied them with slavish lack of thought, intent only on my shorthand, and most generally upon the physical difficulty of keeping my eyes open. I invariably fell asleep three or four times before finishing my allotted task, and only managed to keep awake for the reading of it by standing erect beside the packing-case and reading aloud. How it would have astonished those gifted leader-writers if they could have walked past, overheard me, and recognised in my halting, drowsy declamation their own well-rounded periods!

As I read the last word my spirits always rose instantly, and my craving for sleep left me. With keen antic.i.p.atory pleasure I would fold up the newspaper ready for the morning, take one look out from the doorway to note the weather, shed my clothes, snuff the candle, and climb luxuriously into bed with the current book, whatever it might be. No newspaper for me. This was real reading, and while I read in bed (travel, biography, and fiction) I lived exclusively in the life my author depicted. Vanished utterly for me were Dursley and its worthy folk, and Australia too for that matter. Practically all the books I read carried me to the Old World, and most often to England, which for me was rapidly becoming a synonym for romance, charm, interest, culture, and all the good things of which one dreams.

Everything desirable, and not noticeable or recognised as being in my daily life, I grew gradually to think of as being part and parcel of English life. I did not as yet long to go to England. One does not long to visit the moon. But when some well-wrought piece of atmosphere, some happy turn of speech, some inspiring glimpse of high and n.o.ble motives or tender devotion, caught and held me, in a book, I would sigh quietly and say to myself:

'Ah, yes; in England!'

Looking back upon it, I am rather pleased with myself for the stubborn persistence with which I slogged away at the shorthand; because it never once touched my interest. For me, it was a veritable treadmill.

And, for that reason, I suppose, I was never really good at it. I have no doubt whatever that it had real value for me as a disciplinary exercise.

And then my candle would gutter and expire. I have sometimes, by means of sitting up in bed, holding the book high, and using great concentration, devoured a whole chapter between the first sputtering sound of the candle's death-rattle and the moment of its actual demise. Indeed, I have more than once finished a chapter, when within half a page of it, by matchlight. But that, of course, was gross extravagance. Our candles seemed to me abominably short, and I once tried to seduce Mrs. Gabbitas into allowing me two at a time; but she, good soul, wisely said that one was more than I had any right to burn in an evening, and I was too miserly to buy them for myself.

Yes, it seems horribly unnatural in a youth, but I am afraid I was rather miserly at that time. I wanted pa.s.sionately to do various things. Precisely what, I had never so far thought out. But I did not desire the less ardently for that. I suppose the thing I wanted was to 'better myself,' as the servants say. Was I not a servant? Without ever reasoning the matter out, I felt strongly that the possession of some money, a certain store, was very necessary to my well-being; that in some mysterious way it would add immensely to my chances, to my strength in the world; that it would put me on a footing superior to that I had at present. I even thought of it, in my innocence, as Capital. Many of my musings used to begin with: 'If a fellow has Capital'--and I believed that if he had not this magic talisman his position was very different and inferior. I thought of the world's hewers of wood and drawers of water as being the folk who had no Capital; the others as the people who had somehow acquired possession of the talisman. And I suppose I wanted to be of the company of the others.

Ten shillings a week means twenty-six pounds a year; and I very well remember that on the first anniversary of my entering Mr. Perkins's employ, my Government Savings Bank book showed a balance to my credit of twenty-two pounds three and fourpence. This sum, I decided, might fairly rank as Capital; it really merited the august name, I felt, being actually above the sum of twenty pounds. Eighteen pounds was a respectable nest-egg. Yes, but twenty-three [sic] pounds three and fourpence--that was Capital; and I now definitely took rank, however humbly, among the people who possessed the talisman. I realised very well that I was poor; that this sum of money was not a large one.

Still, it was Capital, and, as such, it gave me a deal of satisfaction, and more of confidence than I could have had without it.

I am certain of that. What a pity it is that one cannot always, later in life, obtain the same secure and confident feeling by virtue of possessing twenty pounds!

This meant that I had spent less than four pounds in the year. But no; Mr. Perkins gave me ten shillings, and Mrs. Perkins five shillings, at Christmas time. Also, I won ten shillings as a prize in a compet.i.tion arranged by the _Dursley Chronicle_. It was for the best five hundred word description of an Australian scene, and I described Livorno Bay and its derelict; and, as I thought at the time--quite mistakenly, I am sure--described them rather well. Apart from a book or two I had bought practically nothing, save boots and socks and a Sunday suit of clothes. Mrs. Perkins had kindly supplied quite a stock of shirts for me, by means of operations performed upon old shirts of her husband's.

My Sunday suit of clothes had occupied me greatly for some weeks. I had never before bought clothing of any kind. After two or three visits to the store, and many talks at mealtimes with Mrs. Gabbitas, I finally decided upon blue serge.

'It do show the dust, but it don't show the wear so much as the rest of 'em,' was the Gabbitular verdict which finally settled this momentous business. A tie to match was given in with the suit, a concession which I owed entirely to Mrs. Gabbitas's determined enterprise. The tie was of satin, and, taken in conjunction with a neatly arranged wad of silk handkerchief, extraordinarily variegated in colour (Mrs. Gabbitas's present), protruding from the breast-pocket of the new coat, it produced on the first Sunday after its purchase an effect which I found at once arresting and sedately rich. My looking-gla.s.s was not more than six inches square, but, by propping it up on a chair, and receding from it gradually, I was able to obtain a very fair view of my trousers; while, by replacing it on the wall, and observing my reflection carefully from different angles, I was able to judge of most parts of the coat and waistcoat.

After a good deal of thought, I decided that the best effect was obtained by fastening the top b.u.t.ton of the coat, turning back one lower corner with careful negligence, and keeping it there by holding one hand in my trouser pocket. In that order, then, I interviewed Mrs.

Gabbitas in the scullery, to receive her congratulations before proceeding to church. Altogether, it was a day of pleasing excitement; but, greatly though it intrigued me, the purchase left me as much a miser as ever, my only other extravagance for a long time being a cream-coloured parasol--my present to Mrs. Gabbitas; and---I may as well confess it--I could not have brought myself to buy that, but for the fact that it was called 'slightly shop-soiled,' and had been 'marked down' from 8s. 11d. to 4s. 10 1/2d.

Yes, for a youth of sixteen years, I fear it must be admitted that I was unnaturally parsimonious, and a good deal of what schoolboys used to call a smug and a swatter. It really was curious, because I do not recall that I had any ambition to be actually rich. Mr. Smiles and his _Self Help_ would have left me cold if I had read that cla.s.sic. I indulged no Whittingtonian dreams of knighthood, mayoral chains, vast commercial or financial operations, or anything of that sort. The things that interested me were largely unreal. I was immensely appealed to, I remember, by a phase in the career of Charles Reade's _Griffith Gaunt_, in which that gentleman lived incognito for awhile in a remote rural inn, and wooed (if he did not actually marry) the buxom daughter of the house, while his real wife was being accused of having murdered him. I think that was the way of it. I know the sojourn in that isolated inn--I pictured its lichen-grown walls; a place that would be approached quite nearly in the stilly night by wild woodland creatures--appealed to me as a wholly delightful episode.

I never had a dream of commercial triumphs. I did not think of fame.

For what was I striving? And why did I so a.s.siduously save? It is not easy to answer these questions. I find the thing puzzles me a good deal. There was my means-to-an-end att.i.tude; but what was the precise end in view? If one comes to that I have been striving all my life long, and to what end? I know this, that in the midst of my physical content as a handy lad in a comfortable home, I had at least thought definitely of my future up to a certain point. I had told myself that there were two kinds of people in the world: the hewers of wood and drawers of water, earning a mere living, as I was earning mine, by the labour of their hands; and the others. I knew very little of what the others did, and had no very definite plan or desire to follow, myself, any of their occupations. But I did know that I wished to live in their division of the community. I wished to be one of those others. I should be unworthy of my father if I did not presently take my place among those others. And, I suppose, the only practical steps in that direction which I knew of and could take were the saving of my wages and the study of shorthand. I think that was about the way of it. And if my diligence with regard to these two matters may be taken as the measure of my desire to join the ranks of the others, it is safe to say I must have desired it very much indeed.

XII

Every one has noticed the odd vividness with which certain apparently unmemorable episodes stand out among one's recollections, though the details of far more important occasions have become merged in the huge and nebulous mist of the things one has forgotten. (Memory is a longish gallery, but the ma.s.s of that which is unremembered, how enormous this is!)

I recall a Sunday evening in Dursley. I had been to church, a rare thing for me, of an evening, to hear a strange, visiting parson; a man who had done missionary work in east London and in Northern Queensland. I remember nothing that he said, and nothing occurred that night to make it memorable for me. And yet ...

The aftermath of the sunset beyond Dursley valley was very beautiful.

It often was. Venus shone out with mellow brilliance a little to the right of the church. The air was full of bush scents, and somewhere, not far from where I stood, dead brushwood was burning and diffusing abroad the aromatic pungency that fire draws from eucalyptus leaves.

Gradually, I was overcome by that sense of the infinitely romantic potentialities of life which I suppose overpowers all young people at times; and, more especially, rather lonely young people. The main events of my short life filed past before me in review against the background of an exquisitely melancholy evening sky, illumined by one perfect star. Even this dim light was further softened for me presently by the moisture that gathered in my eyes; tears that p.r.i.c.ked with a pain that was almost intolerably sweet. I recalled how, as a child, I had longed to see strange and far-off lands; how I had bragged to servants and childish companions that I would travel. And then, how I had travelled--the _Ariadne_, my companions, my father, the derelict, Livorno Bay. And then, the blow that cut off all I had held by, and made of me an unconsidered sc.r.a.p, owning nothing, and owned by n.o.body.

I had been very miserable at the Orphanage. Yes, there was distinct pleasure in recalling and weighing the sum of my unhappiness at St.

Peter's. I had longed to be quit of it; I had willed to be out in the open world, free to make what I could of my own life. And, behold, I was free. My will had accomplished this, had brushed aside the restraining bonds of the whole organisation supervised by Father O'Malley. I, a friendless, bare-legged orphan had done this, because I desired to do it. And now I was a recognised and respectable unit in a free community, earning and paying my way with the best. (I was pleasantly conscious of my blue serge suit, the satin tie, and the multi-coloured silk handkerchief.) I was possessed of Capital--more than twenty pounds; quite a substantial little sum in excess of twenty pounds, even without the interest shortly to be added thereto.

Finally, that very evening, had I not been addressed as 'Mister Freydon,' I, the erstwhile bare-footed 'inmate' of St. Peter's? There was nothing of bathos, nothing in the least ludicrous, to me in this last reflection.

'It's nothing, of course,' I told myself, with proud deprecation; 'and he's only a shop a.s.sistant. But there it is. It does show something after all. And, besides, he is a member of the School of Arts Committee!'

The 'he' in this case was, of course, the person who had shown discernment enough to address me as 'Mister Freydon.' And, deprecate as I might, the thing had given me a thrill of deep and real satisfaction. Merely recalling the sound of it added to the exaltation of my mood, and to my obsession by the wonder, the romance of the various transitions of my life.

The hazards of life, the wonder of it all--this it was that filled my mind. How would Ted be struck by it? I thought. And there and then I composed in my mind the letter which should accompany my return of the pound he had given me when I could find an address to which it could be sent. There should be no flinching here, no blinking the exact truth. I may have been an insufferable young prig and sn.o.b. Very likely I was. As I recall it that letter, composed while I gazed across the valley at the evening star, was informed by a sort of easy condescension and friendly patronage. Grateful, yes, but with a faint hint, too, that Ted had been rather fortunate, a little honoured perhaps in having enjoyed the privilege of a.s.sisting, however slightly, in the launch of my career. At one time I had gladly regarded it as a present. That, it seemed, was a blunder of my remote infancy. Honest Ted's pound was a loan, of course, and like any other honourable man I should naturally repay the loan!

Musing in this wise I turned away from the evening star, and walked very slowly past the dairy and the wash-house to my own little room.

Now the odd thing was that, though I seemed to have given not one single thought to the future, though I seemed to have made no plan, but, on the contrary, to have confined myself exclusively to the idlest sort of musing upon the past, yet, as I walked into my dark room, I knew that I had definitely decided to leave Dursley at once, and take the next step in my career. I actually whispered to myself:

'It's a good little room. I shall miss this room. I shall often think of the nights I've spent here.'

All this, as though my few belongings had been packed, and I had arranged to depart next morning; though, in fact, I had not given a single conscious thought to the matter of leaving Dursley until I turned my back on the evening star.

Next morning at breakfast I told Mrs. Gabbitas I meant to leave and make for Sydney; and Mrs. Gabbitas gave me to understand that, with all their infinite varieties of foolishness, most young fellows shared one idiosyncrasy in common: they none of them had sense enough to know when they were well off. I spoke of my shorthand, and said I had not been working at it for nothing. Mrs. Gabbitas sniffed, and expressed very plainly the doubts she felt about shorthand ever providing me with meals of the kind I enjoyed at her kitchen table.

'I suppose the fact is gardening isn't good enough for you, and you want to be a gentleman,' the good soul said, with sounding irony. And, whilst I made some modestly deprecatory sound in reply, my thoughts said: 'You are precisely right.'

With news in hand I have no doubt Mrs. Gabbitas took an early opportunity of a chat with Mrs. Perkins. At all events I had no sooner got my lawn-mower to work that morning than the mistress called me to her where she lay on the verandah.

'Is it true we're going to lose you, Nick?' she said very kindly. And, as my irritating way still was, I blushed confusedly as I endorsed the report.

'Well, of course, we knew we should, sooner or later; and, though we'll be sorry to lose you, you are right to go; quite right. I am sure of that, and so is Geo--so is Mr. Perkins. But have you got a situation to go to, Nick?'

I told her I had not, and that I did not think I could secure a berth in Sydney while I was still in Dursley.

'No, no, perhaps not,' she said musingly. 'You must talk to Mr.

Perkins about it, and I will, too. What made you decide on going now, Nick?'

'I--I don't know,' I replied awkwardly. And then the sweet kindliness of her face emboldened me to add: 'I was just thinking last night--thinking about my life as I looked at the sky where the sunset had been, and--somehow, I found I was decided.' Then, as if to justify if possible the exceeding lameness of my explanation: 'You see, Mrs.

Perkins, I've got the hang of the shorthand pretty well now,' I added.