The Record of Nicholas Freydon Part 13

She nodded sympathetically. 'Well, I'm sure you'll succeed, Nick, I'm sure you will; for you're a good lad, and very persevering. The main thing is being a good lad, Nick; that's the main thing. It's sad for you, having lost your parents, and--and everything. But when you go away, Nick, just try to think of me as if I were your mother, will you? I'll be thinking quite a lot of you, you know. Don't you go and fancy there's n.o.body cares about you. We shall all be thinking a lot about you. And, Nick, if ever you find yourself in any trouble, if you begin to feel you're going wrong in any way, if you feel like doing anything you know is wrong, or if you feel downhearted and lonesome--you just get into a train and come to Dursley, Nick. Come straight here to me, and tell me everything about it, and--and I think I'll be able to help you. I'll try, anyhow; and you'll know I should want to.

And if it isn't easy to come tell me just the same; write and tell me all about it. Promise me that, Nick.'

I promised her. She held out her white, thin hand and clasped my hard hand in it; and I went off to my mowing very conscious of my eyes because they smarted and p.r.i.c.ked, but little indebted to them because they failed to show me anything more definite than a blur of greenery at my feet, and a blur of sunlight above.

A fortnight elapsed before I did really leave that place; but for me most of the emotion of leaving, of parting with my kindly employers and friends, and with pretty, peaceful Dursley, was epitomised in that little conversation on the verandah with Mrs. Perkins. I know now that there are many other sweet and kindly women in the world. At that time no one among them had ever been so sweet and kind to me.

XIII

When I stepped out of the train at Redfern Station in Sydney, I carried all my worldly belongings in a much worn carpet-bag which had been given me by Mr. Perkins. Its weight did not at all suggest to me the need of obtaining a porter's services, and hardly would have done so even if I had been accustomed to engaging a.s.sistance of the sort.

Stepping out with my bag into the bustle of the capital city I walked, as one who knew his way, to where the noisy and malodorous old steam tram-cars started, and made my way by tram to Circular Quay. (I had had my directions in Dursley.) Here I boarded a ferry-boat, and at the cost of one penny was carried across the shining waters of the harbour to North Sh.o.r.e. Half an hour later I had mounted the hill, found Mill Street and Bay View Villa, and actually become a boarder and a lodger there, with a latch-key of my own.

The landlady having left the bedroom to which she had escorted me, my carefully sustained nonchalance fell from me; I turned the key in the door, and sat down on the edge of my bed with a long-drawn sigh. The celerity, the extraordinary swiftness of the whole business left me almost breathless.

'Yesterday,' I told myself, as one recounting a miracle, 'I was planting out young tomatoes in Mr. Perkins's garden in Dursley. Only a few minutes ago I was still in the train. And now--now I'm a lodger, and this is my room, and--I'm a lodger!'

I did not seem able to get beyond that just then, though later on, with a recollection of a certain pa.s.sage in a favourite novel, I tried the sound, in a whisper, of:

'Mr. Nicholas Freydon was now comfortably installed in rooms on the shady side of--North Sh.o.r.e.' At the same time I ran over a few variants upon such easy phrases as: 'My rooms at North Sh.o.r.e,' 'Snug quarters,' 'My boarding-house,' 'My landlady,' and the like.

One must remember that I was less than two years distant from St.

Peter's and from Sister Agatha and her cane.

There were two beds in my room; one small and the other very small. I was sitting on the very small one. The other belonged to Mr. William Smith, whose real name might quite possibly have been something else.

For already, though I had not seen him, I had gathered that my room-mate was an elderly man with a history, of which this much was generally admitted: that he had seen much better days, and was a married man separated from his wife.

'But a pleasanter, kinder-hearted, nicer-spoken gentleman you couldn't wish to meet, that I will say,' Mrs. Hastings, the landlady, had told me. 'Which,' she added, after a pause given to reflection, with eyes downcast, 'if he was otherwise I should not've thought of letting a share of his room to anybody with recommendations from me nephew in Dursley--not likely. No, nor for that matter, of havin' him in my house at all.'

My landlady was an aunt of that Mr. Jokram who had earned distinction (apart from his membership of the School of Arts Committee) by being the first to address me as 'Mister Freydon.' This good man had taken a most friendly interest in my outsetting, and had written off at once to his aunt to know if she could include me among her boarders. Mrs.

Hastings had explained that she was 'Full up as per usual, but if your gentleman friend would care to share Mr. Smith's bedroom, him being as quiet and respectable a gentleman as walks, it will be easy to put in another bed.'

This was before any mention had been made of terms. These, we subsequently learned, ranged from a minimum of 17s. 6d. per week, including light and use of bath. Later, the nephew was able to obtain special concessions for me, as the result of which I had the opportunity of securing all the amenities of Mrs. Hastings's refined home, including a share of Mr. Smith's room, and such plain washing as did not call for the use of starch--all for the very moderate charge of 16s. weekly.

Thus it was that, although a stranger and without friends in Sydney, I was able to go direct into my new quarters, without any loss of time or money; an important consideration even for a capitalist whose fortune at this time amounted to something nearer thirty than twenty pounds. (Mr. Perkins had given me an extra month's wages. Mrs. Perkins had supplemented this by half a sovereign, six pairs of socks, three linen shirts, and half a dozen collars; and Mrs. Gabbitas had given me a brand new Bible and Prayer-book, with ornate bindings and perfectly blinding type, and another of the silk handkerchiefs coloured like a tropical sunset.)

'I shall not be in to tea this evening, Mrs. Hastings, I said, with fine carelessness, as I left the house, after unpacking my belongings and paying a visit to the bathroom, an apartment formed by taking in a section of the back verandah. (The bath was of the same material as the verandah roof--galvanised iron.) 'I've got some business in Sydney that will keep me rather late.'

The good woman rather pierced my carefully a.s.sumed guise of nonchalance by the smile with which she said: 'Oh, very well, Mr.

Freydon; I hope you'll not be kept too late--by business.'

'How in the world did she guess?' I thought as I walked down to the ferry. It may be that the virus of city life had in some queer way already entered my veins. Here was I, the parsimonious 'handy lad,'

who had been saving ninety per cent. of my wages and never indulging myself in any way, actually contemplating the purchase of an evening meal in Sydney, while becoming indebted for an evening meal I should never eat in North Sh.o.r.e; to say nothing of making deceitful remarks about being detained by business, when I had deliberately made up my mind to postpone all business until the next day. Truly, I was making an ominous start in the new life; or so my twitching conscience told me, as I sat enjoying the harbour view from the deck of the ferry-boat which took me to Circular Quay.

My notion of dissipation and extravagance would have proved amusing to the bloods of that day, and merely incredible to those of the present time. There was an unnecessary twopence for the ferry--admitting the whole business to have been unnecessary. There was sixpence for a meal, consisting of tea and a portentous allowance of scones with b.u.t.ter. There was threepence for a packet of cigarettes ('colonial'

tobacco), the first I had ever smoked, and a purchase which had actually been decided upon some days previously. Finally, there was fourpence for a gla.s.s of colonial wine in a George Street wine-shop; and this also, like the rest of the outing, had been practically decided upon before I left Dursley. But with regard to the wine there had been reservations. The cigarettes were certainly to be tried. The wine was to be had if circ.u.mstances proved favourable, and such a plunge seemed at the time desirable. It did; and so I may suppose the outing was successful.

During my wanderings up and down the city streets, I examined carefully the vestibules of various places of amus.e.m.e.nt--rather dingy most of them were at that date--but had no serious thought of penetrating further. The shops, the road traffic, and the people intrigued me greatly, but especially the people, the unending streams of lounging men, women, and children. Some, no doubt, were on business bent; but the majority appeared to me to take their walking very easily, and every one seemed to be chattering. My life since as a child I left England had all been spent in spa.r.s.ely populated rural surroundings, and the noisy bustle of Sydney impressed me very much, as I imagine the Strand would impress a Dartmoor lad, born and bred, on his first visit to London.

It did not oppress me at all. On the contrary, I felt pleasantly stimulated by it. Life here seemed very clearly and emphatically articulate; it marched past me in the streets to a stirring strain.

There were no pauses, no silences, no waiting. And then, too, one felt that things were happening all the time. The atmosphere was full of stir and bustle. Showy horses and carriages went spanking past one; cabs were pulled up with a jerk, and busily talking men clambered out from them, carelessly handing silver to the driver, as though it were a thing of no consequence, and pa.s.sing from one's sight within doors, waving cigars and talking, talking all the time. Obviously, big things were toward; not one to-day and one to-morrow, but every hour in every street. Fortunes were being made and lost; great enterprises planned and launched; great crimes, too, I supposed; and crucial meetings and partings.

Yes, this was the very tide of life, one felt; and with what pulsing, irresistible strength it ebbed and flowed along the city highways!

Among all these thousands of pa.s.sers-by no one guessed how closely and with what inquisitive interest I was observing them. I suppose I must have covered eight or ten miles of pavement before walking self-consciously into that wine-shop, and sitting down beside a little metal table. I know now that, with me, nervousness generally takes the form of marked apparent nonchalance. Doubtless, this is due to concentrated effort in my youth to produce this effect. I did not know the name of a single Australian wine; but I remembered some enthusiastic comment of my father's upon the 'admirable red wine of the country,' so I ordered a gla.s.s of red wine, and, with an amused stare, the youth in attendance served me.

Like many of the wines of the country it was fairly potent stuff, and rather sweet than otherwise, probably an Australian port. I sipped it with the air of one who generally devoted a good portion of his evenings to such dalliance, and ate several of the thin biscuits which lay in a plate on the table. Meanwhile, I observed closely the other sippers. They were all in couples, and the s.n.a.t.c.hes of their conversation which I heard struck me as extraordinarily dramatic in substance; most romantic, I thought, and very different from the leisurely, languid gossip of those who draw patterns in the dust with their clasp-knives, and converse chiefly about 'baldy-faced steers,'

'good feed,' 'heavy bits o' road,' and the like, with generous intervals of say ten or twelve minutes between observations. These folk in the wine-shop, on the contrary, tripped over one another in their talk; their hands and shoulders and brows all played a part, as well as their lips, and their glances were charged with penetrant meaning.

As I made my way gradually down to Circular Quay and the ferry, some one stepped out athwart my path from a shadowy doorway, and I had a vision of straw-coloured hair, pale skin, scarlet lips, a woman's figure.

'Going home, dear? What about coming with me? Come on, de-ear!'

Somehow I knew all about it. Not from talk, I am sure. Possibly from reading; possibly by instinct. I felt as though the poor creature had hit me across the face with a hot iron. I tried to answer her, but could not. She barred my path, one hand on my arm. It was no use; I could not get words out. Those waiting seconds were horrible. And then I turned and fairly ran from her, a rather hoa.r.s.e laugh pursuing me among the shadows as I went.

It was horrible, and affected me for hours. But it did not spoil my outing. No, I think on the whole it added to the general excitation. I had a sense of having stepped right out into the deep waters of life, of being in the current. The drama of life was touching me now; its sombre and tragical side as well as the rest of it.

'This really is life,' I told myself as the ferry bore me among twinkling lights across the harbour. 'This is the big world, and Dursley hardly was.'

It stirred me deeply. The harbour itself; the dim, mysterious outlines of ships, the dancing water, the sense of connection with the world outside Australia, the very latch-key in my pocket, and the thought that I would presently be going to bed at my lodgings, in a room shared by an experienced and rather mysterious man, with a past; all combined to produce in me a stirring alertness to the adventurous interest of life.

XIV

One of the odd things about that first evening of mine in Sydney was that it introduced me to the tobacco habit, one of the few indulgences which I have never at any time since relinquished. I smoked several cigarettes that evening, with steadily increasing satisfaction. And, on the following day, acting on the advice of my room-mate, Mr. Smith, I bought a shilling briar pipe and a sixpenny plug of black tobacco as a week's allowance. From that point my current outgoings were increased by just sixpence per week, no less, and for a considerable period, no more.

For some days, at least, and it may have been for longer, Mr. William Smith became the mentor to whom I owed the most of such urban sophistication as I acquired. He was a very kindly and practical mentor, worldly, but in many respects not a bad adviser for such a lad so situated. When I recall the stark ugliness of his views and advice to me regarding a young man's needs and att.i.tude generally where the opposite s.e.x was concerned, I suppose I must admit that a moralist would have viewed my tutor with horror. But, particularly at that period, I am not sure that the average man of the world, in any walk of life, would have differed very much from Mr. Smith in this particular matter. One could imagine some quite worthy colonels of regiments giving not wholly dissimilar counsel to a youngster, I think.

Morning and evening Mr. Smith applied some sort of cosmetic to his fine grey moustache, which kept its ends like needles. He always wore white or biscuit-coloured waistcoats, and was scrupulously particular about his linen. He generally had an air of being fresh from his bath.

His thin hair was never disarranged, and his mood seemed to be cheerfully serene. Summer heats drew plentiful perspiration from him, but no sign of languor or irritation. On Sunday mornings he stayed in bed till ten-thirty, with the _Sydney Bulletin_, and on the stroke of eleven o'clock he invariably entered the church at the corner of Mill Street. I used to marvel greatly at this, because he never missed his bath, and his Sunday morning appearance gave the impression that his toilet had received the most elaborate attention. He carried an ivory crutch-handled malacca walking-stick, and in church I used to think of him as closely resembling Colonel Newcome. His voice was a mellow baritone, he never missed any of the responses; and the odour which hung about him of soap and water, cosmetic, light yellow kid gloves, and good tobacco--he smoked a golden plug, very superior to my cheap, dark stuff--seemed to me at that time richly suggestive of luxury, sophistication, distinction, and knowledge of affairs.

Many years have pa.s.sed since I set eyes on Mr. Smith, and no doubt he has long since been gathered to his fathers; but I believe I am right in saying that his was a rather remarkable character. I know now that he really was a dipsomaniac of a somewhat unusual kind. At ordinary times he touched no stimulant of any sort. But at intervals of about three months he disappeared, quite regularly and methodically, and always with a handbag. To what place he went I do not know. Neither I think did Mrs. Hastings or his employers. At the end of a week he would reappear, clothed as when he went away, but looking ill and shaken. For a few days afterwards he was always exceedingly subdued, ate little, and talked hardly at all. But by the end of a week he was himself again, and remained perfectly serene and normal until the time of his next disappearance. I once happened to see the contents of the handbag. They consisted of an old, rather ragged Norfolk coat and trousers and a suit of pyjamas; nothing else.

Mr. Smith was a sort of time-keeper at the works of Messrs. Poutney, Riggs, Poutney and Co., the wholesale builders' and masons' material people. I was informed that he had once been the chief traveller for this old-established firm, on a salary of seven hundred pounds a year, with a handsome commission, and all travelling expenses paid. His salary now was two pounds twelve shillings and sixpence a week; and I apprehend that his services were retained by the firm rather by virtue of what he had done in the past than for the sake of what he was doing at this time. I was told that commercial travelling in New South Wales, when Mr. Smith had been in his prime, was a dashing profession which produced many drunkards. But from Mr. Smith himself I never heard a word about his previous life.

I recall many small kindnesses received at his hands, and at the outset the domestic routine of my Sydney life was largely arranged for me by Mr. Smith.

'Never wear a collar more than once, or a white shirt more than twice,' was one of the first instructions I received from him.

Subsequently he modified this a little for me, upon economic grounds, advising me to take special care of my shirt on Sunday, in order that it might serve for Monday and Tuesday. 'Then you've two days each for the other two shirts in each week, you see. But socks and collars you change every day. In Sydney you must never wear a coloured shirt; always a stiff, white shirt, in Sydney.'

On my second evening there Mr. Smith took me to a hatter's shop and chose a billyc.o.c.k hat for me, in place of the soft felt which I usually wore.

'You must have a hard hat in Sydney,' he said, 'except in real hot weather; and then you could wear a flat straw, if you liked. I prefer a grey hard hat for summer. But straw will do for a youngster. You should have a pair of gloves, for Sunday, you know. They're useful, too, for interviewing princ.i.p.als.'

One might have fancied that gloves were a kind of pa.s.sport, or perhaps a skeleton key guaranteed to open princ.i.p.als' doors. It was Mr. Smith who first made me feel that there was a connection between morals, respectability, and cold baths. To miss the morning tub, as Mr. Smith saw it, was not merely a calamity but also a disgrace; a thing to make one ashamed; a lapse calculated seriously to affect character. How oddly that does clash, to be sure, with his views of a young man's relations with the other s.e.x! And yet, I am not so sure. Shocked as many people would be by those views, they might admit in them perhaps a sort of hygienic intention. It was that I fancy, more than anything else, which did as a fact shock me. As companions, co-equals, fellow-humans, I believe this curious man absolutely detested women. I wonder what sort of a wife he had had! ...

When I come to compare my launch in Sydney with all that I know and have read of youthful beginnings in Old World centres, I marvel at the luxurious ease and freedom of Australian conditions. To put it into figures now--my start in Sydney did not cost me a sovereign. I did not spend two days without earning more than enough to defray all my modest outgoings. My search for employment, so far from wearing out shoe-leather, was confined to a single application, to one brief interview. This was not at all due to any cleverness on my part, but in the first place to the good offices of Mr. Perkins of Dursley, and in the second place to the easygoing character of prevailing Australian conditions.