CHAPTER IX.
THE CITY OF LONDON.
It was a considerably abridged version of his visit to Richmond whichMrs. Ringrose received from her son. Gordon Lowndes had indeed givenHarry free leave to tell his mother what he liked, but not even to hercould the boy bring himself to repeat all that he had seen and heard.He preferred to quote the frank admissions of Lowndes himself, and thatwith reticence and a definite object. It was Harry's ambition to removehis mother's bitterness against the young woman who had never been tosee her; and, by explaining the matter as it had been explained to him,he easily succeeded, since Mrs. Ringrose would have sympathised andsorrowed with her worst enemy when that enemy was in distress. Inuprooting one prejudice, however, her son went near to planting anotherin its stead.
"I only hope, my boy, that you are not going to fall in love with her."
"Mother!"
"She seems to have made a deep impression on you."
"But not that sort of impression! She is a fine creature, I can see,and we got on capitally together. We shall probably become the best offriends. But you need have no fears on any other score. Why, she mustbe ever so much older than I am."
"She is twenty-seven. He told me so."
"There you are! Twenty-seven!" cried Harry, triumphantly.
But it was not a triumph he enjoyed. Twenty-seven seemed a great age tohim, and six years an impassable gulf. Doubtless it was just as well,especially when a person did not in the least resemble another person'sideal; still, he had not supposed she was so old as that. He wished hehad not been told her age. Certainly it gave him a sense of safety,just as he was beginning to wonder what the view would be like fromRichmond Hill to-day. But it was a little dull to feel so safe as allthat.
This was the day on which Harry Ringrose had intended to pack up hisAfrican curios and send them off to Lowndes's office. But, after theconversation of which the above was a snatch, his mother charged him todo nothing of the kind. If Mr. Lowndes was in such difficulties, it wascertainly not their place to add to them by claiming further favours athis hands. Harry agreed, but said the idea had originated with Lowndeshimself. His mother was firm on the point, and counselled him either tosell his own wares or to listen to her and give up the idea.
So Harry haunted the Kensington Public Library, and patiently waitedhis turn for such journals as the _Exchange and Mart_. But it was in anevening paper that he came across the advertisement which brought thefirst grist to his mill. A lady in a suburb guaranteed good prices forsecondhand books, left-off jewellery, and all kinds of bric-a-brac and"articles of vertu," and inserted her advertisement in places asoriginal as itself. It caught Harry's eye more than once before theidea occurred to him; but at length he made his way to that suburb witha pair of ostrich eggs, an assegai, and a battle-axe studded withbrass-headed nails. He came back with a basket of strawberries, a potof cream, and several shillings in his pocket. Next evening apost-office order to the amount of that first-class fare to London wasremitted to Gordon Lowndes, while a new silk hat hung on the pegs, togive the boy a chance in the City. All that now remained of the curioswere one pair of ostrich eggs and a particularly murderous tomahawk,with which Harry himself chopped up the empty packing-cases to save infirewood.
So a few days passed, and the new clothes came home, and Harry Ringrosewas externally smart enough for the Stock Exchange itself, before thefirst letter came from Uncle Spencer. He had spoken to several of thebusiness men among his congregation, but, he regretted to say, with butlittle result so far. Not that this had surprised him, as consciencehad of course forbidden him to represent his nephew as other than hewas in respect of that training and those qualifications in which Harrywas so lamentably deficient. He understood that for every vacant postthere were some hundreds of applicants, all of whom could writeshorthand and keep books, while the majority had taken the trouble tomaster at least one foreign language. Harry had probably learned Frenchat school, but doubtless he had wasted his opportunities in that as inother branches. Shorthand, however, appeared to be the most essentialrequirement, and, as it was unfortunately omitted from thepublic-school curriculum, Mr. Walthew was sending Harry a "Pitman'sGuide," in the earnest hope that he would immediately apply himself tothe mastery of this first step to employment and independence.Meanwhile, one gentleman, whose name and address were given, had saidthat he would be glad to see Henry if he cared to call, and of courseit was just possible that something might come of it. Henry wouldnaturally leave no stone unturned, and would call on this gentlemanwithout delay. Uncle Spencer, however, did not fail to add that he wasnot himself sanguine of the result.
"He never is," said Harry. "What's the good of going?"
"You must do what your uncle says," replied Mrs. Ringrose, to whom theletter had been written.
"But what's the good if he's given me away beforehand? He will havetold the fellow I can't even write an office fist, and am generally nouse, so why should he take me on? And if the fellow isn't going to takeme on, why on earth should I go and see him?"
Mrs. Ringrose pointed out that this was begging the question, andreminded Harry that his Uncle Spencer took a pessimistic view ofeverything. She herself then went to the opposite extreme.
"I think it an excellent sign that he should want to see you at all,and I feel sure that when he does see you he will want to snap you up.What a good thing you have your new clothes to go in! Your uncledoesn't say what the business is, but I am quite convinced it hassomething to do with Africa, and that your experience out there is thevery thing they want. So be sure that you agree to nothing until wehave talked it over."
Harry spent a few minutes in somewhat pusillanimous contemplation ofthe Pitman hieroglyphs, wondering if he should ever master them, andwhether it would help him so very much if he did. It was not that hewas afraid of work, for he only asked to be put into harness at onceand driven as hard as they pleased. But it was a different matter to betold first to break oneself in; and to begin instantly and in earnestand alone required a higher order of moral courage than Harry couldcommand just then.
But he went into the City that same forenoon, and he saw the gentlemanreferred to in his uncle's letter. The interview was not morehumiliating than many another to which Harry submitted at the samebidding; but it was the first, and it hurt most at the time. No soonerhad it begun than Harry realised that he had no clue as to therelations subsisting between Mr. Walthew and the man of business, noryet as to what had passed between them on the subject of himself, andhe saw too late that he had allowed himself to be placed in athoroughly false position. It looked, however, as though the clergymanhad been less frank than he professed, for Harry was put through asecond examination, and his admissions received with the most painfultokens of surprise. He was even asked for a specimen of hishandwriting, which self-consciousness made less legible than ever; inthe end his name was taken, "in case we should hear of anything," andhe was bowed out with broken words of gratitude on his lips and bittercurses in his heart.
He went home vowing that he never would submit to that indignity again:yet again and again he did.
Mr. Walthew was informed of the result of the interview which he hadinstigated, and wrote back to say how little it surprised him. But hementioned another name and another address, and, in short, sent hisnephew hat-in-hand to some half-dozen of his friends and acquaintances,none of whom showed even a momentary inclination to give the lad atrial. Harry did not blame them, but he did blame his uncle for makinghim a suppliant in one unlikely quarter after another. Yet he neverrefused to go when it came to the point; for, though a week slipped bywithout his learning to write a line of shorthand, Harry Ringrose hadcharacter enough not to neglect a chance--no matter how slight--forfear of a rebuff--no matter how brutal.
Yet he never forgot the exquisite misery of those unwarrantable begginginterviews: the excitement of seeking for the office in the swarming,heated labyrinth of the City--the depression of the long walk home withanother blank drawn from the bag. How he
used to envy the smart youthsin the short black jackets and the shiny hats--all doing something--allearning something! And how stolidly he looked the other way when in oneor two of those youths he recognised a schoolfellow. How could he faceanybody he had ever known before?--an idler, a pauper, and disgraced.They would only cut him as he had been cut that first morning on hisway to the old home; therefore he cut them.
But one day he was forced to break this sullen rule: his arm wasgrabbed by the man he had all but passed, and a sallow London facecompelled his recognition.
"You're a nice one, Ringrose!" said a voice with the London twang. "Isit so many years since you shared a cabin on a ship called the_Sobraon_, with a chap of the name of Barker?"
"I'm awfully sorry," cried Harry with a blush. "You--I wasn't lookingfor any one I knew. How are you, Barker?"
"Oh, as well as a Johnny can be in this hole of a City. Thinking ofknocking up again and getting the gov'nor to send me another longvoyage. I'm not a man of leisure like you, Ringrose. What brings _you_here?"
"Oh, I've only been to see a man," said Harry, without technicaluntruth.
"I pictured you loafin' about that rippin' old place in the photos youused to have up in our cabin. Not gone to Oxford yet, then?"
"No--the term doesn't begin till October. But----" Harry tried to tellthe truth here, but the words choked him, and the moment passed.
"Not till October! Four clear months! What a chap you are, Ringrose; itmakes me want to do you an injury, upon my Sam it does. Look at me! Atit from the blessed week after I landed--at it from half-past nine tosix, and all for a measly thirty-five bob a week. How would you likethat, eh? How would you like that?"
Harry's mouth watered, but he said he didn't know, and contrived toforce another smile as he held out a trembling hand.
"Got to be going, have you?" said the City youth. "I thought youbloated Johnnies were never in a hurry? Well, well, give a poor devil athought sometimes, cooped up at a desk all day long. Good-bye--youlucky dog!"
The tears were in Harry's eyes as he went his way, yet the smile wasstill upon his lips, and it was grimly genuine now. If only the enviousBarker knew where the envy really lay! How was it he did not? To theconscious wretch it was a revelation that all the world was notconversant with his disappointment and his disgrace.
To think that he had talked of going up to Oxford next term! It hadnever been quite decided, and he blushed to think how he must havespoken of it at sea. Still more was he ashamed of his want of commonpluck in pretending for a moment that he was going up still.
"'Pluck lost, all lost,'" he thought, remorsefully; "and I've lost italready! Oh, what would Innes think of me, for carrying his motto in myheart when I don't need it, and never acting on it when I do!"
That night he wrote it out on the back of a visiting card, and tackedthe tiny text to the wall above his bed:--
"MONEY LOST--LITTLE LOST HONOUR LOST--MUCH LOST PLUCK LOST--ALL LOST."
And his old master's motto sent Harry Ringrose with a stout heart onmany another errand to the City, and steeled and strengthened him whenhe came home hopeless in the evening. Yet it was very, very hard tolive up to; and many also were the unworthy reactions which afflictedhim in those dark summer days, that he had expected to be so free fromcare, and so full of happiness.
* * * * *
One afternoon he crept down from a stockbroker's office, feelingsmaller than ever (for that stockbroker had made the shortest work yetof him), to see a man selling halfpenny papers over a placard thatproclaimed "extraordinary scoring at Lord's." A spirit of recklessnesscame over Harry, and buying a paper was but the thin end of hisextravagance. A minute later he had counted his money and found enoughto take him to St. John's Wood and into the ground; and it was stillthe money that he had obtained for his curios; and town was intolerablewith that sinister London heat which none feel more than your seasonedsalamander from the tropics. Harry's new clothes were sticking to him,and he thought how delicious it would be at Lord's. To think was toargue. What was sixpence after all? He had had no lunch, and that wouldhave cost him sixpence more or less; he would do without any lunch, andgo to Lord's instead.
It was delicious there, and Harry was so lucky as to squeeze into aseat. Quite a breeze, undreamt of in the City, blew across the ground,blowing the flannels of the players against their bodies and fetchinglittle puffs of dust from the pitch. The wicket was crumbling, the longscores of the morning were at an end. It was only the tail of theMiddlesex team that Harry was in time to see batting, but they weregood enough for him. All his life he had nourished a hopeless passionfor the game, and every care was forgotten until the last man was out.
"Why--Harry?"
He had been looking at the pitch, and he spun round like an arrestedcriminal. Yet the strong hand on his shoulder was also delicate andfull of kindness, and he was gazing into the best face he had everseen. His ideal woman he was still to find, but his ideal man he hadloved and worshipped from his twelfth year; and here he stood, suppleand athletic as ever, only slimmer and graver; and their hands werelocked.
"Mr. Innes!"
"I had no idea you were in England, Harry."
"I have been back three weeks."
"Why didn't you write?"
He knew everything. Harry saw it in the kind, strong face, and heard itin a voice rich with sympathy and reproach.
"I was too ashamed," he murmured--and he hung his head.
"You might have trusted me, old fellow," said Mr. Innes. "Come and siton top of the pavilion and tell me all about yourself."
At any other time it would have been a sufficient joy to Harry Ringroseto set foot in that classic temple of the sacred game; now he had eyesfor nothing and nobody but the man who led him up the steps, throughthe cricketing throng, up the stairs. And when they sat together ontop, and the ground was cleared, and play resumed, not another ball didHarry watch with intelligent eyes. He was sitting with the man to whomhe had been too proud to write, but whose disciple he had been at heartfor many a year. He was talking to the object of his earlyhero-worship, and he found him his hero still.
Mr. Innes listened attentively, gravely, but said very little himself.He appreciated the difficulty of starting in life without money orinfluence, and was too true a friend to make light of it. He thoughtthat business would be best if only an opening could be found.Schoolmastering led to nothing unless one had money or a degree. Stillthey must think and talk it over, and Harry must come down to Guildfordand see the new chapel and the swimming-bath. Could he come for a dayor two before the end of the term? Was he sure he could leave hismother? Harry was quite sure, but would write when he got home.
Then it was time for Mr. Innes to go, but first he gave Harry tea inthe members' dining-room, and after that a lift in his hansom as far asPiccadilly. So that Harry reached home both earlier and in better casethan he might have done; whereupon Mrs. Ringrose, hearing his key inthe latch, came out to meet him with a face of mystery which contrastedoddly with his radiance.
"Oh, mother," he cried, "whom do you think I've seen! Innes! Innes! andhe's the same as ever, and wants me to go and stay with him, so youwere right, and I was wrong! What is it then? Who's here?" His voicesank in obedience to her gestures.
"Your Uncle Spencer," she whispered, tragically.
"Delighted to see him," cried Harry, who had been made much too happyby one man to be readily depressed by any other.
"He has been waiting to see you since five o'clock, my boy."
"Has he? Very sorry to hear that, uncle," said Harry, bursting into thesitting-room and greeting the clergyman with the heartiness he wasfeeling for all the world. Mr. Walthew looked at his watch.
"Since a quarter before five, Mary," said he, "and now it wants sevenminutes to six. Not that I shall grudge the delay if it be attributableto the only cause I can imagine to account for it. The circumstances,Henry, are hardly those which warrant levity; if you have indeed beensuccessful at last,
as I hope to hear----"
"Successful, uncle?"
"I understand that you have been to see the gentleman on the StockExchange, who was kind enough to say that he would see you, and of whomI wrote to you yesterday?"
"So I have! I had quite forgotten that."
"Forgotten it?" cried Mr. Walthew.
"I beg your pardon, Uncle Spencer," said Harry, respectfully enough;"but since I saw your friend I have been with Mr. Innes my oldschoolmaster, the best man in the whole world, and I am afraid it hasput the other interview right out of my head."
"He did give you an interview, however?"
"Yes, for about a minute."
"And nothing came of it, as usual?" sneered the clergyman.
"And nothing came of it--as usual--I am very sorry to say, UncleSpencer."
"And what time was this?"
"Between two and three."
"You must excuse me, Henry, but I am doing my best to obtain employmentfor you--I cannot say I have much hope now--still, I am doing my best,and I am naturally interested in the use you make of your time. May Iask--as I think I have a right to ask--where you have spent theafternoon?"
"Certainly, Uncle Spencer; at Lord's Cricket-ground."
Harry was well aware that he had delivered a bombshell, and he quiteexpected to receive a broadside in return. But he had forgotten UncleSpencer's mode of expressing superlative displeasure. It has been saidthat Mr. Walthew never smiled, but there were occasions when a weirdgrin shed a sort of storm-light on his habitual gloom. That was whenindignation baffled invective, and righteous anger fell back on holyscorn. The present was an occasion in point.
Mr. Walthew stared at Harry without a word, but gradually this unlovelylook broke out upon him, and at last he positively chuckled in hisbeard.
"You are out of work, and too incompetent to obtain any," said he, "andyet you can waste your own time and your mother's money in watching acricket-match!"
"I went without my lunch in order to do so," was Harry's defence. "Andbesides, it was my money--I got it for my spears and things."
"And you call that your money?" cried Uncle Spencer. "I would not talkabout my money until I was paying for my board and residence under thisroof!"
"Now, that will do!" cried Mrs. Ringrose. "That is my business,Spencer, and I will not allow you to speak so to my boy."
"Come, come, mother," Harry interrupted, "my uncle is quite right fromhis point of view. I admit I had qualms about going to Lord's myself.But I think I must have been meant to go--I know there was some meaningin my meeting Innes."
"If anything could surprise me in you, Henry," resumed Mr. Walthew, "itwould be the Pagan sentiments which you have just pained me byuttering. May you live to pray forgiveness for your heresy, as also foryour extravagance! But of the latter I will say no more, though Icertainly think, Mary, that where my assistance has been invoked I havea right to speak my mind. The waste of money is, however, even lessflagrant, in my opinion, than the waste of time. It is now severaldays, Henry, since I sent you a guide to shorthand. An energetic andconscientious fellow, as anxious as you say you are to work for hisdaily bread, could have mastered at least the rudiments in the time.Have you?"
"I told you he had not!" cried Mrs. Ringrose. "How can you expect it,when every day he has been seeking work in the City? And he comes in sotired!"
"Not too tired to go to Lord's Cricket-ground, however," was the notunjust rejoinder. "But perhaps his energy has found another outlet?Last time I was here he was going to write articles and poems for themagazines--so I understood. How many have you written, Henry?"
Harry scorned to point out that it was his mother's words which werebeing quoted against him, not his own; yet ever since his evening atRichmond he had been meaning to try his hand at something, and he feltguilty as he now confessed that he had not written a line.
"I was sure of it!" cried the clergyman. "You talk of gettingemployment, but you will not take the trouble to qualify yourself forthe humblest post; you talk of writing, but you will not take thetrouble even to write! Not that I suppose for a moment anything wouldcome of it if you did! The magazines, Henry, do not open their columnsto young fellows without literary training, any more than houses ofbusiness engage clerks without commercial education or knowledge. Yetit would be something even if you tried to write! It would be somethingif you wrote--as probably you would write--for the waste-paper basketand the dust-bin. But no, you seem to have no application, no energy,no sense of duty; and what more I can do for you I fail to see. I havewritten several letters on your account; I have risked offendingseveral friends. Nothing has come of it, and nothing is likely to comeof it until you put your own shoulder to the wheel. I have put mine. Ihave done _my_ best. My conscience is an easy one, at any rate."
Mr. Walthew caught up his hat and brought these painful proceedings toa close by rising abruptly, as though his feelings were too much forhim. Mrs. Ringrose took his hand without a word, and without a wordHarry showed him out.
"So his conscience is easy!" cried the boy, bitterly. "He talks as ifthat had been his object--to ease his conscience--not to get me work.He has sent me round the City like a beggar, and he calls that doinghis best! I had a good mind to tell him what I call it."
"I almost wish you had," said Mrs. Ringrose, shedding tears.
"No, mother, there was too much truth in what he says. I have beenindolent. Nevertheless, I believe Innes will get me something to do.And meanwhile I intend to have my revenge on Uncle Spencer."
"How, my boy?"
Harry had never looked so dogged.
"By getting something into a magazine within a week."