The Record of Nicholas Freydon Part 25

'Madame is not wiz you, sare?' the fellow said.

We had not been there for a month, but he remembered; and, on the instant, I recalled our last visit--the beginning of one of our fresh starts. And this was the end of it. Well!

Suddenly I found myself reaching for my hat.

'No,' I said, 'madam is late. I will go and look for her.' And out I went. In that moment I had seen pictures: f.a.n.n.y, before our marriage, on her knees at my hearth in the room in Howard Street; in her dove-coloured frock on our marriage night, clinging to my arm when she was fresh from the excitement of leaving Howard Street. There were other scenes. What an immature and helpless child she was! And how much help had I given her? After all, food and clothing and so forth, freedom from tyranny--well, these were not everything. She needed more intimate care and guidance. The responsibility was mine.

In the end I went to a shop and bought the materials for a meal, even as on an evening which seemed very long ago, when I had given her supper in my bedroom. Only, on this occasion, with a sigh which contained considerable self-reproach, I omitted Burgundy, or any equivalent thereto. We had the wherewithal for brewing tea in our rooms. And so, carrying a supper for us both, I returned to the lodging. And there was f.a.n.n.y on her knees before the hearth in the sitting-room, just as she had been on that previous occasion. And now she was crying. Her nerveless fingers held no brush. The hearth was far from speckless, and the grate held only dead grey ashes, and some sc.r.a.ps of torn paper--my own wasted ma.n.u.script.

f.a.n.n.y was weeping, weakly and quietly. She knew, then. She had not forgotten that I had seen her. But her hair had been brushed. She wore a different gown. She looked shrinkingly and fearfully up at me as I came in.

'You better, little woman?' I said as I began to put down my parcels.

I had tried hard to make the words sound careless and normal, kindly and cheerful. But I thought as I heard them that a man with a quinsy might have managed a better tone.

In another moment she was clinging to me somehow, without having risen to her feet, and sobbing out an incoherent expression of her penitence and shame. I was tremendously moved. And, while seeking to console her, my real sympathy for this sobbing child was shot through and illumined by the most fatuous sort of optimism.

'I've been making a tragedy out of a disagreeable mishap,' I told myself. 'She is only a child who has made herself ill. The thing won't happen again, one may be sure. This is a lesson she will never forget.

No one could possibly mistake the genuineness of all this.' By which I meant her heaving shoulders, streaming eyes, and penitent self-abas.e.m.e.nt.

In the process of soothing her, of course, I made light of her self-confessed baseness. I suppose I spent at least half an hour in comforting her. Then we supped, with a hint of April gaiety towards the end. I endeavoured to be humorous in a lover-like way. f.a.n.n.y dabbed her eyes, smiled, and choked, and even laughed a little. But the vows, protestations, resolves for the future--these were all most solemn and impressive.

And they all held good, too,--for a week and a half. And then our landlady gave me notice, because in the broad light of mid-afternoon f.a.n.n.y had stumbled over the front door-mat on entering the house, and lain there, laughing and singing; she had refused to move, and had had to be dragged upstairs for appearance's sake.

The landlady must have occupied ten minutes, I think, in giving me notice. Almost, I could have struck the poor soul before she was through with it. When at length she drew breath, and allowed me to escape, I thought her c.o.c.kney dialect the basest and vilest ever evolved among the tongues of mankind. Yet the good woman was really very civil, and rather kindly disposed towards me than otherwise, I think. There was no good reason why I should have felt bitter towards her. Rather, perhaps, I should have been apologetic. And it was clean contrary to my nature and disposition, this savage bitterness. But one of the curses of squalor is that it exacerbates the mildest temper, corrodes and embitters every one it touches.

On the third morning after our instalment in new lodgings--two almost exactly similar rooms, a little farther away from Mrs. Pelly and Howard Street, in a turning off the lower Hampstead Road--I received a letter, forwarded on from our first lodging, from Arncliffe, the editor to whom, some four years before this time, I had taken a letter of introduction. At intervals Arncliffe had accepted and published quite a number of articles from my pen, but we had not again met, unless one counts the occasion upon which I followed him into an expensive restaurant at luncheon time, on the off-chance of being noticed by him. The letter ran thus:

'Dear Mr. Freydon,--As you are probably aware, I am now in the chair of the _Advocate_, and a pretty uneasy seat I find it, so far. It occurs to me that we might be able to do something for each other.

Will you give me a call here between three and four one afternoon this week, if you are not too busy.--Yours sincerely, Henry Arncliffe.'

The letter gave me rather a thrill. Sylva.n.u.s Creed had published two books of mine, and my work had recently appeared in several of the leading journals. But the _Advocate_ was certainly one of the oldest and most famous of London's daily newspapers--I vaguely recalled having read somewhere that it had changed its proprietors during the past week or so--and I had never before received a summons from the editor of such a journal. f.a.n.n.y had a headache and was cross that morning; but I told her of the letter, and explained that it might easily mean some increase in my earnings.

'If he would commission me for a series of articles, we might afford to take a room on the next floor for me to work in,' I said rather selfishly perhaps.

'Groceries seem to be dearer every week,' said f.a.n.n.y, 'and Mrs. Heaps charges sevenpence for every scuttle of coal. I never heard of such a price. Mother never charges more than sixpence, no matter if coal goes up ever so.'

This touched a sore spot between us. It seemed Mrs. Pelly had two rooms empty, and f.a.n.n.y did not find it easy to forgive me for my refusal to go and live in Howard Street.

If Arncliffe found his editorial chair an uneasy seat, it was not the chair's fault. A more dignified and withal more ingeniously contrived and padded resting-place for mortal limbs I never saw. And the editorial apartment, how s.p.a.cious, silent, and admirably adapted, in the dignity of its lines and furnishings, for the reception of Cabinet Ministers, and the excogitation of thunderbolts for the chancelleries of Europe! It was currently reported in Fleet Street that Lord Beaconsfield had been particularly familiar with the interior of that apartment.

I found the great man in cheerful spirits, and looking fresher than ordinary mortals, I suppose because his day had only just begun. From him I learned how, some eight days previously, the _Advocate_ had been purchased, lock, stock, and barrel (from the family whose members had inherited possession of it), by Sir William Bartram, M.P., head of the great engineering and contracting firm which bore his name. It seemed Sir William had been advised by a very great statesman indeed to secure the editorial services of Mr. Arncliffe; and he had managed to do it in forty-eight hours by dint of the exercise of a certain amount of political and social influence in various quarters, and by entering into a contract which, for some years, at all events, would make Arncliffe a tolerably rich man.

A good deal was left to my imagination, of course. It was a.s.sumed, very kindly, that I understood the relations existing between this n.o.bleman and the other, as touching Sir William's precise influence and sphere in the world of politics. Naturally, when the Party Whip heard so and so, he went to Mr. ----, and the result, of course, was pressure from Lord ----, which settled the matter in five minutes. I nodded very intelligently at intervals, to show my recognition of the inevitableness of it all; and so an end was reached of that stage in our conversation.

In the slight pause which followed Arncliffe touched a spring releasing the door of a cabinet apparently designed to hold State Papers of the highest importance, and disclosed some beautiful boxes of cigars and other creature comforts. It became clear to me, as I thanked Arncliffe for the match he handed me, that he must have forgotten the first impressions he had formed of me some years earlier. Perhaps he had confused me in his mind with some other more important and affluent person. And yet he did remember some of my articles. His remarks proved that. I wondered if he could also remember that they had reached him, some of them, from South Tottenham. Probably not. And, if he did, his editorial omniscience could hardly have given him knowledge of any of my slum garrets. On the other hand, he clearly a.s.sumed that I was familiar with the life of the House of Commons and the clubs of London, if not with that of the other august and crimson-benched Chamber.

'You know L----,' he said, casually mentioning a leader in literary journalism so prominent that I could not but be familiar with his reputation.

'By name, of course,' I agreed.

'Ah! To be sure. And T----, and R----, and, I think, J----; yes, I've got 'em all. So we ought to make the _Advocate_ move things along, if the most brilliant staff in London can accomplish it.'

I nodded sympathetically, and presently gathered that over and above all this the kindly and intimate relations subsisting between Arncliffe and the princ.i.p.al occupants of the Treasury Bench (not to mention a certain moiety of influence which might conceivably be exercised by the new proprietor, Sir William) were such as to ensure brilliant success and greatly increased prestige to the _Advocate_, under the new regime.

All this was very pleasant hearing, of course, and at suitable intervals I offered congratulatory movements of the head and eyebrows, with murmured e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns to similar effect. But, as touching myself and my obscure problems (of which such an Olympian as Arncliffe could, naturally, have no conception), it was all somewhat insubstantial and remote; rather of the stuff of which dreams are compounded. And so, watching my opportunity, I presently ventured a tentative inquiry as to the direction in which I might hope to justify the terms of Mr.

Arncliffe's letter, and be of any service.

'Oh! Well, of course, that's for you to say,' said the editor, with a suggestion of having been suddenly curbed in full career. 'I may be quite wrong in supposing such things would have any interest for you.

But I--I have followed--er--your work, you know; followed your work and, in fact, it struck me you might like to join us here, you know.

It is a staff worth joining, I think, and-- But, of course, you are the best judge of your own affairs.'

'It's extremely kind of you, extremely kind.'

'Not at all. I think you could do good work for the _Advocate_.'

'There's nothing I'd like better. But-- Do I understand that you mean me to join your permanent staff, and come and work here in the building every day?'

'Why, yes; yes, to be sure.'

'I see.'

It meant an end to my free-lancing then. But, after all, what had this free-lancing meant, since my marriage? It would provide a place to work in. The hours might not be excessive. The pay ... f.a.n.n.y was for ever talking of the increase in prices. My earnings, though on the up grade, had seemed very insufficient of late. There certainly was nothing to make me cling to our home as a place in which to carry on my work.

'And in the matter of salary?' I said, as who should say that in such a business it is well to glance at even the most trivial of details.

'Ah!' replied Arncliffe. 'Yes; that's a point now, isn't it? You see the fact is I had a bit of a scene with the business side here yesterday. We are new to each other as yet, you know--the manager and myself. But he's a very decent fellow, and I shall soon have him properly in hand, I'm sure of that. Meantime, of course, I have been rather going it, you know, from his point of view. You can't get L----, and T----, and R----, for tuppence-ha'penny, you know.'

'No, indeed, that's true,' said I, with the air of one who had tried this game and proved its impossibility.

'No. And so, in the matter of pay I must go gently, you know, at first. I must ca' canny for a while. I shall be able to make things all right a little later on, you know, but just to begin with I'm afraid I couldn't manage more than three or four hundred a year.'

I did not think it necessary to mention that my London record so far was little more than half the lower sum mentioned. On the contrary, I pinched my chin and said: 'Oh!' rather blankly, and without really knowing what I said, or why I said it. I wanted to think, as a matter of fact. But what I said was well enough.

'H'm! Yes, I see what you mean. It is poor, I know,' said Arncliffe, in his quick, burbling way. 'But, as I say, I should hope to improve it a little later on, you know. And, meantime, you may probably continue to earn something outside, you know; so that two or three hundred--say three hundred--but of course you're the best judge.'

Perhaps I was. I wonder! At all events, my mind was made up. The life of the last few months had made it clear that I needed more money.

'Oh, I'll be very glad,' I said. 'By the way, you did mention at first three or four, not two or three hundred.'

'Did I? Ah! Well, say three to begin with.'

I gathered it was rather difficult for the real Olympian to think at all in figures so absurdly low. So we let it go at that, and, this being a Friday, I agreed to start work at the office on the following Monday.

'I shall be able to get a room here, shall I not?' I asked with some anxiety.

'A room? Oh, surely, surely. Yes, yes, that's all right. Ask for me.

Come and see me before doing anything, and I'll see to it. So glad we've fixed it. Good-bye!'