Collected works of j s f.., p.24
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 24
He stopped, and looked round dreamily, and following his eyes I saw them rest at last on a cricket bat, reposing in one corner of his attic beneath a faded dark-blue cap and jacket.
“Yes,” he said, seeing me look at these objects, “I was in the Eleven at Oxford, and the’Varsity Match was the last one I ever played in, for my father died the next day, suddenly, and I had no more time for cricket.”
He pulled down an old Cricket Annual from the topmost shelf, and showed me the score of the match in question with much pride.
“It is hard work, Tempest, finding some occupation that will put even bread and cheese in your mouth. I was literally obliged to find work quickly, for we had nothing to live upon.
I wished to sell this house, but my mother and sister thought it would be a wiser plan to come here and live in it. It would have sold for a good price; but we have lived here rent free, and sometimes, you know, it would have been very difficult for me to raise the rent. It has been all that I could do, so far, to keep things going.”
“But I suppose your sister is engaged in some work?” I said.
“Oh, Julia works very hard indeed. She sees to the housekeeping, and she assists Mr. Dumbury in his parish; but, of course, that does not bring anything in.”
“Of course not.”
“We were here six months, Tempest, before I found any work. My mother had a little money, and we managed to subsist on it until I secured a post. I tried nearly everything.
I tried agencies and agents, answered and inserted advertisements, and tramped many a weary mile. And yet nothing ever turned up, and I used to go home every evening sick at heart and weary. At length I determined to take any post that would put a pound a week into my empty pockets. The house was our own, and nothing could turn us out of it; but we must have something to eat. I went down to the City again, and began to call on the publishers, trusting that one or other of them would think me likely to be useful. At last I came to Mr. Spivey. It was at the end of a dreary day in February, and I had called at so many places and received so many rebuffs, that I was well-nigh worn out. You know Spivey, Tempest, you know his quick, abrupt manner, his way of going straight to the point. He heard my story, looked me over at a glance, and seemed to finish his calculations respecting me in a second. ‘You’re an Oxford man,’ said he; ‘you haven’t a degree; you’re poor; you want work. Well, you’ll find it very hard to get any.’ I assured him that I was so well aware of that fact, that I could not possibly hope to add to my knowledge of it. ‘Well,’ says he, in that pertinent fashion of his, ‘what can you do? What about languages? Latin and Greek? All very well for lawyers, doctors, and parsons, but little use in my trade. French? That’s better. German? Better still. Come, now, here’s a French letter and here a German one. Just translate them, will you?’ I wrote out a hurried translation for him, and then added that I could also write short-hand pretty well.
‘That’s the best thing I’ve heard yet,’ he said. Then he asked me what salary I wanted. I said I must leave that in his hands. ‘Come here at nine o’clock to-morrow morning,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you what I’ll do then.’ The next morning I went, and Mr. Spivey engaged me as his principal clerk — up to that time he had only had an office-boy — at the magnificent salary of one guinea per week.”
“A guinea?”
“A guinea, Tempest. Lord, man, I have been there six years and my salary now is but fifty shillings a week! When I first went to Spivey he was doing hardly any business; now, he has a good business. I have seen it rise tremendously, and Spivey has made money. He ought to pay me five pounds a week at least; but he won’t, and I’m too much afraid of being without a situation to throw it up.”
We went downstairs after that, and there had a short conversation with Miss Christmas, the result of which was that I settled to come and live with them from the next day forward.
I then rose to say good-night; but Miss Christmas, who was holding a large quarto of “Devotions” in her hand, remarked that it was time for the evening exercises, and she would be glad if I would join them. I was so completely under her power that I should have consented, had not Tom Christmas reminded his sister that the tram passed through the Square in three minutes and hurried me off, Miss Christmas observing pointedly that a time would come when we should all have to find leisure for death. With which very pleasant truism ringing in my ears I said good-night and went away, the warm grasp of Tom’s hand dwelling with me until I got back to my hotel.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PRIMROSE OF ISLINGTON.
IN SPITE OF Miss Julia Christmas’s persistent attempts to supervise my religious and moral welfare, I managed to be very comfortable while residing under her brother’s roof. I think that the knowledge that it was her brother’s roof made me summon up courage to resist Miss Julia’s influence. Quiet and unassuming as he was, Tom Christmas had yet plenty of decision about him, and though he would listen patiently to all that his over-zealous sister had to say, he never allowed himself to be influenced by her. And though I, at first, used to wait upon Miss Julia’s words with fear and trembling, and even accompanied her on more than one occasion to the church in which she sat under the faithful Mr. Dumbury, I gradually drew courage to myself from Tom, and began to make myself quite at home.
Tom and I, indeed, became like two brothers. He cleared out a corner of his attic study for me, and we bought a second-hand desk and set it up therein, and there we used to read and write of an evening after coming home from a day’s hard work at Spivey’s. There, too, we used to sit and talk when all else were sleeping, discussing schemes whereby we could raise or supplement our incomes, for we were both ardently desirous of becoming rich men. There was small chance of our ever acquiring fortunes in the service of Mr. Spivey, though indeed that gentleman was rapidly making one himself, and whenever we got a chance of earning a few extra sovereigns we were glad to take it.
As for Tom Christmas, it was indeed quite necessary that he should add something to the fifty shillings which he received weekly from Mr. Spivey. His mother and sister were absolutely dependent upon him. There was no rent to pay for the house, to be sure, but everything else, taxes, rates, bread, coals, and candles, had to be provided out of Tom’s slender salary — yea, and clothes also. When there is no rent to pay, fifty shillings per week is certainly enough for a family of three, though strict economy will have to be practised and a rigid supervision exercised in dealing with butcher and grocer. I had not been long at Christmas’s, however, before I found that Mrs and Miss Christmas were not the most economical people in the world. Of course it was not to be wondered at. People who have never had to earn their own bread, who have never known what it is to earn a meal before eating it, knowing that unless it was earned there would be no meal, are not the people for economy. Miss Christmas was a good manager and a model housekeeper in the way of cleanliness and order; but her economy was of that sort which the proverb calls “penny wise and pound foolish.” Mrs and Miss Christmas were aware that things were not so well with them as in the days of the Devonshire rectory and promptly paid tithes; and, therefore, Miss Christmas decided that less butter must be used in the kitchen, and not more than one pound of tea bought per week. But Miss Christmas had always been accustomed to subscribing a guinea to the Tract Society, and half-a-guinea to the Married Missionaries, and two guineas to the Society for converting Irish Papists; and under no circumstances whatever could she dream of discontinuing these annual absurdities. And so the housekeeping money used to go, and poor Tom knew that it went, and said nothing, for he could not bear, as he once said to me, to think that his sister should be deprived of her little pleasures.
People who only knew Tom Christmas very slightly must have thought him the most mean and miserly hunks that ever lived. I never knew him to spend a penny without taking it out of his pocket and looking dubiously at it for a long time. He would tramp through a shower of rain rather than spend twopence on a ‘bus or tram. He would never have a drink with any one, because it would have necessitated his inviting the other party to drink at his expense. He would never go anywhere or do anything that cost money. He would sometimes explain this to those for whose opinion he cared, telling them that it was so awfully hard to keep going in London that he was literally forced to be a screw. But there were times when Tom’s pocket opened like magic, and when even shillings came from it as carelessly as though he owned the purse of Fortunatus. Such were the occasions when he carried home a bottle or two of good old port for his mother, or when his sister had expressed a desire to read and possess the Life and Letters of some divine or female celebrated for sanctification and faithfulness — or, as the book generally proved, for peevish selfishness and a general aptitude for making everybody else miserable.
And yet Tom Christmas, though he had a tremendous love of books, never seemed to see that it would have been quite as just for him to have treated himself to a volume or two at a second-hand stall as to spend seven-and-sixpence on some fad of Miss Julia’s. This habit of selfabnegation was the radical defect in his character. Self-knowledge and self-control he had in plenty; but his self-reverence was conspicuously absent in that he never understood how good it is for a man to be just to himself before he is generous to others. Selfishness, like Miss Julia Christmas’s, is well-nigh invincible; but I think even she would have melted if she had sometimes seen Tom gazing wistfully at some battered and tattered old volume in the twopenny boxes of Booksellers’ Row.
“Why don’t you buy it then?” I used to say, when he was turning over the leaves of some “find” or other, to be had at some such sum as sixpence or a shilling. “It’s very cheap.”
“Ah, but, you see, it’s this way. If I once give way, Leonard, I shall never, never recover my self-command. I can look at things now, and think I should like to possess them, and still never entertain a thought of buying them. Sixpence is a very small amount — I say, fancy Spivey hesitating over a sixpence! — and I can afford to spend one sixpence. But if I bought this book I should want to buy another next week. And I made a rule, Len, six years ago, of a very stringent nature, and I mean to stick to it.”
“And what was it, Tom? Though, of course, I can guess it. It was that you would never, by any possible chance, give yourself a bit of pleasure.”
“No — hardly that. No pleasure? Why, my dear man, I have a lot of pleasure. Is it not pleasure to walk and talk with you?”
“I am glad, very glad, if it is, Tom. But—”
“Indeed, when one comes to think of it, I have plenty of pleasure. I feel pleased when I come strolling through this musty little street and look at all the old books. I feel pleased when we walk along the busy Strand and see all the people hurrying this way and that. I feel pleased when we’ve had a good day at Spivey’s, and that gentleman has gone home with visions of untold wealth floating in his brain. I feel pleased when I see McFlynn getting his ‘shtuff’ ready in good time.”
“Poor pleasures, and all cheaply acquired.”
“Nay, Len, there you are wrong. Not poor, and not to be despised because they cost nothing. Indeed, I think the highest pleasure is that which springs from one’s self and not from the outside.”
“You are getting too deep for me now, Tom,” I answered. “But confess, wouldn’t you like to go up to Lord’s and see the University Cricket Match, which you can easily do by expending, say, half-a-crown?”
“I should, Len. But think — that half-a-crown would buy ever so many loaves of bread. I believe it would even purchase a very small shoulder of mutton. It would provide me with two dinners — mutton tenpence, potatoes a penny, bread a penny, and pudding threepence, which is one-and-three altogether. I should like the cricket match, Len, but I should want my money back when it was over. I suppose circumstances have made me selfish and money-grubbing., “Selfish you are not, Tom,” I said. “Few men are less so.”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I am afraid we men are desperately selfish. If we talk about Heaven it’s because we’re thinking of going there; if we fear Hell it’s because we’re afraid for ourselves. Always self, always self! There are very few people who ever lose themselves, Len.”
And yet I think Tom did his best to lose himself in work for others. He was upstairs in his study as soon as tea was over, sweating away at some extra work so that the water-rate collector should not have to inform us that he really would not call again, or the gas-bill man throw out nasty hints about proceedings and “summingses.” Sometimes he had to put on an extra spurt so that Miss Julia could have a new gown or a new bonnet, though I will do that lady the justice to say that she was very careful of her clothes and never indulged in splendid attire. Tom, however, never by any possible chance bought a new suit for himself. He explained to me one day that he had possessed a fair stock of clothing at the time of his father’s death, and that he meant to wear it up. The consequence was that he was rather out-of-date in appearance, and would often have looked the better for a new pair of trousers.
“I wonder,” he said one morning, as we were walking to the office, and had just admired the superlative cut of a City mans coat, “I wonder when I shall buy another coat. I think my black one will last another five years.”
“I will tell you when you’ll buy one, Tom. When you fall in love.”
“In love? I fall in love? Man alive, do I look the sort of party to fall in love, or, rather, do you think anybody would ever fall in love with me?”
“I don’t see why not. And as for you, Tom, why, there is no man living more likely to fall in love badly.”
He looked at me wonderingly, and almost stopped his hurried walk.
“And why, Len?”
“Because you — have a great reverence — for women; because you would deify the woman you select; and — because you have got — the domestic capacity —— the — capacity of making everybody happy. — But — it — will be better — for you, Tom Christmas, if you never do fall in love.”
“And why, youthful philosopher?”
“Because, whatever you do, you do in earnest. You will think too much of the woman you fall in love with, and will look upon her as spirit, whereas she will be but flesh. Wherefore trouble would come upon you, and, maybe, worse.”
“A Daniel come to judgment!” he said, and laughed. “Now, do you know, Len, I once was in love and that badly. Yes — and she was a very nice girl, too. A nice, plump, jolly girl. It was when I was at Oxford. As for the girl, she was a barmaid. I think it was the inimitable way in which she used to fill glasses of ale that attracted so many of us to her feet — metaphorically, of course. I wrote a poem about her in which there were several classical allusions. She was Hebe, and I and my graceless companions were the Gods, and the bar-parlour was Olympus, and the bitter beer was nectar. But then nectar was never half so nice as bitter beer.”
I had been at Mr. Spivey’s establishment about twelve months when that good and worthy gentleman took it into his head to introduce a change in the arrangements of his counting-house. Some philanthropist — a lady, I suppose — had induced him to attend a series of meetings held for the purpose of promoting the employment of young women in offices and shops — of course, at longer hours and lower wages than are usually arranged for with young men. Wherefore Mr. Spivey decided to employ a couple of female clerks, and dismiss Messrs. Denton and Jones, the one of whom was too fond of his glass and the other of his mirror to do any good. That is to say, they were both too fond of the glass, but old Denton’s glass went to his mouth, while Jones’s only reflected its owner’s countenance and collar.
Mr. Spivey at that time used to consult Tom Christmas and me about everything. Tom, indeed, had been his familiar spirit for many a year, and nothing had ever been done at Spivey’s without his advice. But they had dragged me into their counsels within the first six months of my arrival, I suppose because I was a sober, steady little party with an old-fashioned air and somewhat strait-laced ideas. When the girl-clerk question came up we were duly called into our employer’s sanctum.
“I am thinking,” said Mr. Spivey, magisterially, “of employing female labour.”
He spoke as if the world was a convict-prison, full of women, and he the Grand Bashaw, at whose nod everybody must obey.
“What do you think, Mr. Christmas?” added Mr. Spivey, after we had digested this important information.
“Do you purpose to dismiss all your present clerks, sir?” asked Tom.
“Oh, dear me, no! But,” said Mr. Spivey,
“that Denton will have to go, and young Jones, too. The one’s a drunkard, and the other a puppy. I think, Mr. Christmas, if we replace them by two nice” — a pause—” respectable” — another pause—” well-educated” — one more pause—” Christian” — tremendous emphasis on this last word—’”young women, we shall have wrought a great improvement. Now, what do you think?”
“I think,” said Tom, “that two nice, respectable, well-educated, Christian young women, who could do the work, would quite meet our requirements. But of course they ought to possess all these qualifications without question.”
“Oh, of course,” assented Mr. Spivey. “Oh, dear me, yes. Nice, respectable, well-educated, Christian young women! What do you think, Mr. Tempest?”
“I think, sir,” I said, “that the nice, respectable, well-educated, Christian young women will need one more qualification. They ought to be good-looking.”
“Of course, of course,” said Mr. Spivey, hurriedly, “that’s included in the ‘nice.’ You’re quite right, Tempest. You see, Christmas, they might have to serve customers now and then, and people like an attractive girl. Well, now, Mr. Christmas, will you put an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph, saying that we want a — let me see, we’ll say ‘of good appearance,’ instead of ‘nice’ — that we want two respectable, well-educated young ladies of good appearance and Christian habits, as clerks. Letters only, to The Telegraph office, Christmas. You and Tempest must select a dozen of the best, and have ’em ready for me on Tuesday morning, when I come back from Brighton, and I’ll select the two. Hours! oh, nine till seven, and wages — er — let me see — well, say ten shillings a week. Oh, and Christmas, give Denton and Jones a week’s wages in lieu of notice, and let ’em go on Saturday.”
