CHAPTER V.
A WET BLANKET.
The morning sun filled the front rooms of the flat, and the heavyhearts within were the lighter for its cheery rays. Sorrow may outlivethe night, and small joy come in the morning; but yet, if you are youngand sanguine, and the month be May, and the heavens unspotted, and theair nectar, then you may suddenly find yourself thrilling with anunwarrantable delight in mere life, and that in the very midst oflife's miseries. It was so with young Harry Ringrose, on the morningfollowing his tragic home-coming; it was even so with Harry's mother,who was as young at heart as her boy, and fully as sanguine intemperament. They had come down from the high ground of the night. Theeveryday mood had supervened. Harry was unpacking his ostrich eggs inthe narrow passage, and thoroughly enjoying a pipe; in her own room hismother sat cleaning her silver, incredible contentment in her face,because her boy was in and out all the morning, and the little flat wasgoing to bring them so close together.
"That's the lot," said Harry when the bed was covered with the eggs."Now, mother, which do you think the best pair?"
"They all look the same to me."
"They are not. Look at this pair in my hands. Can't you see thatthey're much bigger and finer than the rest?"
"I daresay they are."
"They're for you, mother, these two."
And he set them on the table among the spoons and forks andplate-powder. She kissed him, but looked puzzled.
"What shall you do with the rest?"
"Sell them! Five shillings a pair; five tens are fifty; that'stwo-pound-ten straight away."
"I won't have you sell them!"
"They are mine, mother, and I must."
"You'll be sorry for it when you have a good situation."
"Ah, when!" said Harry, and he was out again with a laugh.
A noise of breaking wood came from the passage. He was opening anothercase. His mother frowned at her miniature in the spoon she had in hand,and when he returned, brandishing a brace of Kaffir battle-axes, shewould hardly look at them.
"I feel sure Wintour Phipps would take you into his office," said Mrs.Ringrose.
"I never heard of him. Who is he?"
"A solicitor; your father paid for his stamps when he was articled."
"An old friend, then?"
"Not of mine, for I never saw him; but he was your father's godson."
"It comes to the same thing, and I can't go to him, mother. Face oldfriends I cannot! You and I are starting afresh, dear; I'm prepared toanswer every advertisement in the papers, and to take any work I canget, but not to go begging favours of people who would probably cut usin the street. I don't expect to get a billet instantly; that's why Imean to sell all this truck--for the benefit of the firm."
"You had much better write an article about your experiences, and getit into some magazine, as you said you would last night."
Indeed, they had discussed every possible career in the night, amongothers that of literature, which the mother deemed her son competent tofollow on the strength of certain contributions to his school magazine,and of the winning parody in some prize competition of ancient history.He now said he would try his hand on the article some day, but it wouldtake time, and would anybody accept it when written? That was thequestion, said Harry, and his mother had a characteristic answer.
"If you wrote to the Editor of _Uncle Tom's Magazine_," said she, "andtold him you had taken it in as long as you could remember--I bought inthe bound volumes for you, my boy--I feel sure that he would accept itand pay for it too."
"Well, we'll see," said Harry, with a laugh. "Meanwhile we must findsomebody to accept all these curios, and to pay for them. I see no roomfor them here."
"There is certainly very little."
"I wonder who would be the best people to go to?"
Mrs. Ringrose considered.
"I should try Whitbreds," said she at last, "since you are so set uponit. They sell everything; and I have had all my groceries from them forso many years that they can hardly refuse to take something from us."
To the simple-hearted lady, whom fifty years had failed tosophisticate, there seemed nothing unreasonable in the expectationswhich she formed of others, for they were one and all founded upon thealmost fanatical loyalty which was a guiding impulse of her own warmheart. In her years of plenty it was ever the humblest friend who wonher warmest welcome, and the lean years to come proved powerless tocheck this generous spirit. Mrs. Ringrose would be illogically staunchto tradesmen whom she had dealt with formerly, and would delight theirmessengers with unnecessary gratuities because she had been accustomedto give all her life; but so unconscious was she of undue liberality onher part that she was apt to credit others with her own extravagance incharity, and to feel it bitterly when not done by as perhaps she alonewould have done. It simply astounded her when three of her husband'sold friends, who had in no way suffered by him, successively refusedher secret supplication for a desk for her boy in their offices: shewould herself have slept on the floor to have given the child of anyone of them a bed in her little flat.
But the treadmill round in search of work was not yet begun, thoughHarry was soon enough to find himself upon the wheel. Even as heunpacked his native weapons a weighty step was ascending the commonstair, and the electric bell rang long and aggressively just as Mrs.Ringrose decided that it would be worth her son's while to let histrophies go for fifty pounds.
"A tall man in a topper!" whispered Harry, bursting quietly in. "I sawhim through the ground glass; who can it be?"
"Your Uncle Spencer," said Mrs. Ringrose, looking straight at Harryover the wash-leather and the mustard-pot.
"Uncle Spencer!" Harry looked aghast. "What's bringing him, mother?"
"I wrote to him directly I got the telegram."
"You never said so!"
"No; I knew you wouldn't be pleased."
"Need I see him?"
"It is you he has come to see. Go, my boy; take him into thesitting-room, and I will join you when you have had your talk.Meanwhile, remember that he is your mother's brother, and will exerthis influence to get you a situation; he has come so promptly, Ishouldn't be surprised if he has got you one already! And you areletting him ring twice!"
Indeed, the avuncular thumb had already pressed the button longer thanwas either necessary or polite, and Harry went to the door withfeelings which he had difficulty in concealing as he threw it open.Uncle Spencer stood without in a stiff attitude and in sombre clericalattire; he beheld his nephew without the glimmer of a smile on hisfunereal, bearded countenance, while his large hand was slow in joiningHarry's, and its pressure perfunctory.
"So sorry to keep you waiting, but--but I forgot we hadn't a servant,"fibbed Harry to be polite. "Do come in, Uncle Spencer."
"I thought nobody could be at home," was the one remark with which theclergyman entered; and Harry sighed as he heard that depressing voiceagain.
The Reverend Spencer Walthew was indeed the survival of a type ofdivine now rare in the land, but not by any means yet extinct. Hiswaistcoat fastened behind his back in some mysterious manner, and henever smiled. He was the vicar of a semi-fashionable parish in NorthLondon, where, however, he preached in a black gown to empty pews,while a mixed choir behaved abominably behind his back. As a man he wasneither fool nor hypocrite, but the natural enemy of pleasure andenthusiasm, and one who took a grim though unconscious satisfaction indisheartening his neighbour. No two proverbial opposites afford a morecomplete contrast than was presented by Mr. Walthew and Mrs. Ringrose;and yet at the bottom of the brother's austerity there lay one or twoof the sister's qualities, for those who cared to dig deep enough insuch stony and forbidding ground.
Harry had never taken to his uncle, who had frowned on Lord's andtabooed the theatre on the one occasion of his spending a part of hisholidays in North London; and Mr. Walthew was certainly the last personhe wanted to see that day. It made Harry Ringrose throb and tingle tolook on the clergyman and to think of his father; they ha
d never beenfriendly together; and if one syllable was said against the man who wasdown--no matter what he had done--the son of that man was prepared tomake such a scene as should secure an immunity from further insult. Buthere Harry was indulging in fears as unworthy as his determination, andhe was afterwards ashamed of both.
The clergyman began in an inevitable strain, dwelling solemnly on theblessing of adversity in general, before proceeding to point out thatthe particular misfortunes which had overwhelmed Harry and his mothercould not, by any stretch of the imagination, be regarded asadventitious or accidental, since they were obviously the deliberatepunishment of a justly irate God, and as such to be borne withpatience, meekness, and humility. Harry chafed visibly, thinking of hisinnocent mother in the next room; but, to do the preacher justice, hissermon was a short one, and the practical issue was soon receiving theattention it deserved.
"I understand, Henry," said Mr. Walthew, "that you did obtain someuseful and remunerative employment in Africa, which you threw up inorder to come home and enjoy yourself. It is, of course, a great pitythat you were so ill-advised and improvident; but may I ask in whatcapacity you were employed, and at what salary?"
"I don't admit that I was either ill-advised or improvident," criedHarry, with disrespectful warmth. "I didn't go out to work, but for myhealth, and I only worked for the fun of it, and am jolly glad I didcome back to take care of my mother and to work for her. I was tutor ina Portuguese planter's family, and he gave me seventy pounds a year."
"And your board?"
"And my board."
"It was very good. It is a great deal better than anything you arelikely to get here. How long were you with the planter?"
"Ten months."
"Only ten months! You must allow an older head than yours to continuethinking it is a pity you are not there still. Now, as to moneymatters, your father would doubtless cease sending you remittances onceyou were earning money for yourself?"
"No, he sent me fifty pounds last Christmas."
"Then, at any rate, you have brought enough home to prevent your beinga burden to your mother? Between fifty and a hundred pounds, I takeit?"
Harry shook his head; it was hot with a shame he would have owned toanybody in the world but Mr. Walthew.
"Not fifty pounds?"
"No."
"How much, then?"
"Not a penny!"
The clergyman opened his eyes and lifted his hands in unaffectedhorror. Harry could not help smiling in his face--could not have helpedit if he had stood convicted of a worse crime than extravagance.
"You have spent every penny--and you smile!" the uncle cried. "You comehome to find your mother at starvation's door--and you smile! You havespent her substance in--in----"
"Riot!" suggested Harry wickedly. "Sheer riot and evil living! Oh,Uncle Spencer, don't look like that; it's not exactly true; but, can'tyou see, I had no idea what was going to happen here at home? I thoughtI was coming back to live on the fat of the land, and when I'd made mymiserable pile I spent it--like a man, I thought--like a criminal, ifyou will. Whichever it was, you must know which I feel now. Andwhatever I have done I am pretty badly punished. But at least I mean totake my punishment like a man, and to work like one, too, at any mortalthing I can find to do."
Mr. Walthew looked down his nose at the carpet on which he stood. Hehad sense enough to see that the lad was in earnest now, and that itwas of no use to reproach him further with what was past.
"It seems to me, Henry," he said at length, "that it's a case ofability rather than of will. You say you are ready to do anything; thequestion is--what can you do?"
"Not many things," confessed Henry, in a humbler voice; "but I canlearn, Uncle Spencer--I will do my best to learn."
"How old are you, Henry?"
"Twenty-one."
Harry was about to add "yesterday," but refrained from making hisstatement of fact an appeal for sympathy; for the man in him was comingsteadily to the front.
"Then you would leave school in the Sixth Form?"
Harry had to shake his head.
"Perhaps you were on the Modern Side? All the better if you were!"
"No, I was not; I left in the form below the Sixth."
"Then you know nothing about book-keeping, for example?"
"I wish I did."
"But you are a fair mathematician?"
"It was my weakest point."
The clergyman's expression was more melancholy than ever. "It is agreat pity--a very great pity, indeed," said he. "However, I seewriting materials on the table, and shall be glad if you will write medown your full name, age, and address."
Harry sat down and wrote what was required of him in the pretty, ratherscholarly hand which looked like and was the imitation of a prettierand more scholarly one. Then he unsuspectingly blotted the sheet andhanded it to Mr. Walthew, who instantly began shaking his head in themost depressing fashion.
"It is as I feared," said he; "you do not even write a fair commercialhand. It is well enough at a distance," and he held the sheet at arm'slength, "but it is not too easy to read, and I fear it would never doin an office. There are several City men among my parishioners; I hadhoped to go to one or two of them with a different tale, but now Ifear--I greatly fear. However, one can but try. You do not fancy any ofthe professions, I suppose? Not that you could afford one if you did."
"Are the fees so high?" asked poor Harry, in a broken-spirited voice.
"High enough to be prohibitive in your case, though it might not be soif you had saved your money," the clergyman took care to add. "Of whichparticular profession were you thinking?"
"We--we have been talking it all over, and we did speak of--the Law."
"Out of the question; it would cost hundreds, and you wouldn't make apenny for years."
"Then there is--schoolmastering."
"It leads to nothing; besides--excuse me, Henry--but do you think youare scholar enough yourself to--to presume to--teach others?"
Harry fetched a groan.
"I don't know. I managed well enough in Mozambique, but it was chieflyteaching English. I only know that I would work day and night toimprove myself, if once I could get a chance."
"Well," said Uncle Spencer, "it is just possible that I may hear in myparish of some delicate or backward boy whom you would be competent toground, and if so I shall recommend you as far as I conscientiouslycan. But I cannot say I am sanguine, Henry; it would be a differentthing if you had worked harder at school and got into the Sixth Form. Isuppose no other career has occurred to you as feasible? I confess Ifind the range sadly restricted by the rather discreditable limitationsto which you own."
Another career had occurred to Harry, and it was the one to which hefelt most drawn, but by inclination rather than by conscious aptitude,so that he would have said nothing about it had not Mrs. Ringrosejoined them at this moment. Her brother greeted her with a tepidsalute, then dryly indicated the drift of the conversation, enlargingupon the vista of hopeless disability which it had revealed in Henry,and concluding with a repetition of his last question.
"No," said Harry rather sullenly, "I can think of nothing else I'm fitfor unless I sweep a crossing; and then you would say I hadn't moneyfor the broom!"
"But, surely, my boy," cried his mother, "you have forgotten what yousaid to me last night?"
Harry frowned and glared, for it is one thing to breathe yourridiculous aspirations to the dearest of mothers in the dead of night,and quite another thing to confide them to a singularly unsympatheticuncle in broad daylight. But Mrs. Ringrose had turned to her brother,and she would go on: "There is one thing he tells me he would rather dothan anything else in the world--and I am sure he could do it best."
"What is that?"
"Write!"
Harry groaned. Mr. Walthew raised his eyebrows. Mrs. Ringrose sattriumphant.
"Write what, my dear Mary?"
"Articles--poems--books."
A grim resignation was given to Harry, and he
laughed aloud as theclergyman shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
"On his own showing," said Uncle Spencer, "I should doubt whether hehas--er--the education--for that."
Mrs. Ringrose looked displeased, and even dangerous, for the moment;but she controlled her feelings on perceiving that the boy himself wasnow genuinely amused.
"You are quite mistaken," she contented herself with saying. "Have Inever shown you the parody on Gray's Elegy he won a guinea for when hewas fourteen? Then I will now."
And the fond lady was on her feet, only to find her boy with his backto the door, and laughter, shame and anger fighting for his face.
"You shall do no such thing, mother," Harry said firmly. "Thatmiserable parody!"
"It was nothing of the kind. It began, 'The schoolbell tolls theknell----'"
"Hush, mother!"
"'Of parting play'" she added wilfully.
Mr. Walthew's eyebrows had reached their apogee.
"That is quite enough, Mary," said he. "I disapprove of parodies, rootand branch; they are invariably vulgar; and when the poem parodied hasa distinctly religious tendency, as in this case, they are alsoirreverent and profane. I am only glad to see that Henry is himselfashamed of his lucubration. If he should write aught of a religiouscharacter, and get it into print--a difficult matter, Henry, for one soindifferently equipped--my satisfaction will not be lessened by mysurprise. Meanwhile let him return to those classics he should neverhave neglected, for by the dead languages only can we hope to obtain amastery of our own; and I, for my part, will do my best in what, afterall, I regard as a much less hopeless direction. Good-bye, Mary. Itrust that I shall see you both on Sunday."
But Mrs. Ringrose would not let him go without another word for herboy's parody.
"When I read it to Mr. Lowndes," said she, to Harry's horror, "he saidthat he thought that a lad who could write so well at fourteen shouldhave a future before him. So you see everybody is not of your opinion,Spencer; and Mr. Lowndes saw nothing vulgar."
"Do I understand you to refer," said Mr. Walthew, bristling, "to theperson who has done me the honour of calling upon me in connection withyour affairs?"
"He is the only Mr. Lowndes I know."
"Then let me tell you, Mary, that his is not a name to conjure with inmy hearing. I should say, however, that he is the last person to be acompetent judge of vulgarity or--or other matters."
"Then you dislike him too?" cried poor Mrs. Ringrose.
"Do you?" said Mr. Walthew, turning to Harry; and uncle and nephewregarded one another for the first time with mutually interested eyes.
"Not I," said Harry stoutly. "He has been my mother's best friend."
"I am sorry to hear it," the clergyman said; "what's more, I don'tbelieve it."
"But he has been and he is," insisted the lady; "you little know whathe has done for me."
"I wouldn't trust his motives," said her brother. "I am sorry to sayit, Mary; he is very glib and plausible, I know; but--he doesn't strikeme as an honest man!"
Mrs. Ringrose was troubled and vexed, and took leave of the visitorwith a face as sombre as his own; but as for Harry, he recalled his ownfeelings on the journey up, and he felt less out of sympathy with hisuncle than he had ever done in his life before. But Mr. Walthew was notone to go without an irritating last word, and in the passage he hadhis chance. He had remarked on the packing cases, and Harry had divedinto his mother's room and returned with an ostrich egg in each hand,of which he begged his uncle's acceptance, saying that he would sendthem by the parcels post. Mr. Walthew opened his eyes but shook hishead.
"I could not dream of taking them from you," said he, "in--in yourpresent circumstances, Henry."
"But I got them for nothing," said Harry, at once hurt and nettled. "Igot a dozen of them, and any amount of assegais and things, all forlove, when I was on the Zambesi. I should like you and my aunt to havesomething."
"Really I could not think of it; but, if I did, I certainly should notpermit you to incur the expense of parcel postage."
"Pooh! uncle, it would only be sixpence or a shilling."
"_Only_ sixpence _or_ a shilling! As if they were one and the samething! You talk like a millionaire, Henry, and it pains me to hear you,after the conversation we have had."
Harry wilfully observed that he never had been able to study theshillings, and his uncle stood shocked on the threshold, as indeed hewas meant to be.
"Then it's about time," said he, "that you did learn to study them--andthe sixpences--and the pence. You were smoking a pipe when I came. Iconfess I was surprised, not merely because the habit is a vile one,for it is unhappily the rule rather than the exception, but because itis also an extravagant habit. You may say--I have heard young mensay--that it only costs you a few pence a week. Then, pray, study thosefew pence--and save them. It is your duty. And as for what you say yougot for nothing, the ostrich eggs and so forth, take them and sell themat the nearest shop! That also is your bounden duty, unless you wish tobe a burden to your mother in her poverty; and I am very sorry that youshould compel me to tell you so by talking of not 'studying' theshillings."
He towered in the doorway, a funereal monument of righteous horror; andonce more Harry held out his hand, and let his elder go with the lastword. The lad realised, in the first place, that he had just heard oneor two things which were perfectly true; and yet, in the second, he wascertain that he could not have replied without insolence--after his ownprior and virtuous resolve to sell the curios himself. Now he neverwould sell them--so he felt for the moment; and he found himselfclosing the door as though there were illness in the flat, in hisanxiety to keep from banging it as he desired.
"I fear your Uncle Spencer has been vexing you too," his mother said;"and yet I know that he will do his best to secure you a post."
"Oh, that's all right, mother; he was kind enough; it's only his way,"said Harry, for he could see that his mother was sufficiently put outas it was.
"It's a way that makes me miserable," said poor Mrs. Ringrose, with atear in her voice. "Did you hear what he said to me? He said what Inever shall forgive."
"Not about those rotten verses?"
"No--about Mr. Lowndes. Your uncle said he didn't think him an honestman."