his coat.
It is perhaps necessary to explain what scruts are. In the daily
output of every potbank there are a certain proportion of flawed
vessels. These are cast aside by the foreman, with a lordly gesture,
and in due course are hammered into fragments. These fragments, which
are put to various uses, are called scruts; and one of the uses they
are put to is a sentimental one. The dainty and luxurious Southerner
looks to find in his Christmas pudding a wedding-ring, a gold thimble,
a threepenny-bit, or the like. To such fal-lals the Five Towns would
say fie. A Christmas pudding in the Five Towns contains nothing but
suet, flour, lemon-peel, cinnamon, brandy, almonds, raisins--and
two or three scruts. There is a world of poetry, beauty, romance, in
scruts--though you have to have been brought up on them to appreciate
it. Scruts have passed into the proverbial philosophy of the district.
"Him's a pudden with more scruts than raisins to 'm" is a criticism
not infrequently heard. It implies respect, even admiration. Of Emily
Wrackgarth herself people often said, in reference to her likeness to
her father, "Her's a scrut o' th' owd basin."
Jos had emptied out from his pocket on to the table a good three dozen
of scruts. Emily laid aside her spoon, rubbed the palms of her hands
on the bib of her apron, and proceeded to finger these scruts with the
air of a connoisseur, rejecting one after another. The pudding was
a small one, designed merely for herself and Jos, with remainder to
"the girl"; so that it could hardly accommodate more than two or three
scruts. Emily knew well that one scrut is as good as another. Yet she
did not want her brother to feel that anything selected by him would
necessarily pass muster with her. For his benefit she ostentatiously
wrinkled her nose.
"By the by," said Jos, "you remember Albert Grapp? I've asked him to
step over from Hanbridge and help eat our snack on Christmas Day."
Emily gave Jos one of her looks. "You've asked that Mr. Grapp?"
"No objection, I hope? He's not a bad sort. And he's considered a bit
of a ladies' man, you know."
She gathered up all the scruts and let them fall in a rattling shower
on the exiguous pudding. Two or three fell wide of the basin. These
she added.
"Steady on!" cried Jos. "What's that for?"
"That's for your guest," replied his sister. "And if you think you're
going to palm me off on to him, or on to any other young fellow,
you're a fool, Jos Wrackgarth."
The young man protested weakly, but she cut him short.
"Don't think," she said, "I don't know what you've been after, just of
late. Cracking up one young sawny and then another on the chance of me
marrying him! I never heard of such goings on. But here I am, and here
I'll stay, as sure as my name's Emily Wrackgarth, Jos Wrackgarth!"
She was the incarnation of the adorably feminine. She was exquisitely
vital. She exuded at every pore the pathos of her young undirected
force. It is difficult to write calmly about her. For her, in another
age, ships would have been launched and cities besieged. But brothers
are a race apart, and blind. It is a fact that Jos would have been
glad to see his sister "settled"--preferably in one of the other four
Towns.
She took up the spoon and stirred vigorously. The scruts grated and
squeaked together around the basin, while the pudding feebly wormed
its way up among them.
II.
Albert Grapp, ladies' man though he was, was humble of heart. Nobody
knew this but himself. Not one of his fellow clerks in Clither's
Bank knew it. The general theory in Hanbridge was "Him's got a stiff
opinion o' hisself." But this arose from what was really a sign of
humility in him. He made the most of himself. He had, for instance, a
way of his own in the matter of dressing. He always wore a voluminous
frock-coat, with a pair of neatly-striped vicuna trousers, which he
placed every night under his mattress, thus preserving in perfection
the crease down the centre of each. His collar was of the highest,
secured in front with an aluminium stud, to which was attached by a
patent loop a natty bow of dove-coloured sateen. He had two caps,
one of blue serge, the other of shepherd's plaid. These he wore on
alternate days. He wore them in a way of his own--well back from his
forehead, so as not to hide his hair, and with the peak behind. The
peak made a sort of half-moon over the back of his collar. Through a
fault of his tailor, there was a yawning gap between the back of his
collar and the collar of his coat. Whenever he shook his head, the
peak of his cap had the look of a live thing trying to investigate
this abyss. Dimly aware of the effect, Albert Grapp shook his head as
seldom as possible.
On wet days he wore a mackintosh. This, as he did not yet possess a
great-coat, he wore also, but with less glory, on cold days. He had
hoped there might be rain on Christmas morning. But there was no rain.
"Like my luck," he said as he came out of his lodgings and turned
his steps to that corner of Jubilee Avenue from which the
Hanbridge-Bursley trams start every half-hour.
Since Jos Wrackgarth had introduced him to his sister at the Hanbridge
Oddfellows' Biennial Hop, when he danced two quadrilles with her, he
had seen her but once. He had nodded to her, Five Towns fashion, and
she had nodded back at him, but with a look that seemed to say "You
needn't nod next time you see me. I can get along well enough without
your nods." A frightening girl! And yet her brother had since told him
she seemed "a bit gone, like" on him. Impossible! He, Albert Grapp,
make an impression on the brilliant Miss Wrackgarth! Yet she had sent
him a verbal invite to spend Christmas in her own home. And the time
had come. He was on his way. Incredible that he should arrive! The
tram must surely overturn, or be struck by lightning. And yet no! He
arrived safely.
The small servant who opened the door gave him another verbal message
from Miss Wrackgarth. It was that he must wipe his feet "well" on the
mat. In obeying this order he experienced a thrill of satisfaction
he could not account for. He must have stood shuffling his boots
vigorously for a full minute. This, he told himself, was life. He,
Albert Grapp, was alive. And the world was full of other men, all
alive; and yet, because they were not doing Miss Wrackgarth's bidding,
none of them really lived. He was filled with a vague melancholy. But
his melancholy pleased him.
In the parlour he found Jos awaiting him. The table was laid for
three.
"So you're here, are you?" said the host, using the Five Towns
formula. "Emily's in the kitchen," he added. "Happen she'll be here
directly."
"I hope she's tol-lol-ish?" asked Albert.
"She is," said Jos. "But don't you go saying that to her. She doesn't
care about society airs and graces. You'll make no headway if you
aren't blunt."
"Oh, right you are," said Albert, with the air of a man who knew his
way about.
A moment later Emily joined them, still wearing her kitchen apron. "So
you're here, are you?" she said, but did not shake hands. The servant
had followed her in with the tray, and the next few seconds were
occupied in the disposal of the beef and trimmings.
The meal began, Emily carving. The main thought of a man less
infatuated than Albert Grapp would have been "This girl can't cook.
And she'll never learn to." The beef, instead of being red and brown,
was pink and white. Uneatable beef! And yet he relished it more than
anything he had ever tasted. This beef was her own handiwork. Thus
it was because she had made it so.... He warily refrained from
complimenting her, but the idea of a second helping obsessed him.
"Happen I could do with a bit more, like," he said.
Emily hacked off the bit more and jerked it on to the plate he had
held out to her.
"Thanks," he said; and then, as Emily's lip curled, and Jos gave him
a warning kick under the table, he tried to look as if he had said
nothing.
Only when the second course came on did he suspect that the meal was a
calculated protest against his presence. This a Christmas pudding? The
litter of fractured earthenware was hardly held together by the suet
and raisins. All his pride of manhood--and there was plenty of pride
mixed up with Albert Grapp's humility--dictated a refusal to touch
that pudding. Yet he soon found himself touching it, though gingerly,
with his spoon and fork.
In the matter of dealing with scruts there are two schools--the old
and the new. The old school pushes its head well over its plate and
drops the scrut straight from its mouth. The new school emits the
scrut into the fingers of its left hand and therewith deposits it on
the rim of the plate. Albert noticed that Emily was of the new school.
But might she not despise as affectation in him what came natural to
herself? On the other hand, if he showed himself as a prop of the old
school, might she not set her face the more stringently against him?
The chances were that whichever course he took would be the wrong one.
It was then that he had an inspiration--an idea of the sort that comes
to a man once in his life and finds him, likely as not, unable to put
it into practice. Albert was not sure he could consummate this idea of
his. He had indisputably fine teeth--"a proper mouthful of grinders"
in local phrase. But would they stand the strain he was going to
impose on them? He could but try them. Without a sign of nervousness
he raised his spoon, with one scrut in it, to his mouth. This scrut he
put between two of his left-side molars, bit hard on it, and--eternity
of that moment!--felt it and heard it snap in two. Emily also heard
it. He was conscious that at sound of the percussion she started
forward and stared at him. But he did not look at her. Calmly,
systematically, with gradually diminishing crackles, he reduced that
scrut to powder, and washed the powder down with a sip of beer. While
he dealt with the second scrut he talked to Jos about the Borough
Council's proposal to erect an electric power-station on the site of
the old gas-works down Hillport way. He was aware of a slight abrasion
inside his left cheek. No matter. He must be more careful. There were
six scruts still to be negotiated. He knew that what he was doing was
a thing grandiose, unique, epical; a history-making thing; a thing
that would outlive marble and the gilded monuments of princes. Yet he
kept his head. He did not hurry, nor did he dawdle. Scrut by scrut,
he ground slowly but he ground exceeding small. And while he did so
he talked wisely and well. He passed from the power-station to a
first edition of Leconte de Lisle's "Parnasse Contemporain" that he
had picked up for sixpence in Liverpool, and thence to the Midland's
proposal to drive a tunnel under the Knype Canal so as to link up the
main-line with the Critchworth and Suddleford loop-line. Jos was too
amazed to put in a word. Jos sat merely gaping--a gape that merged by
imperceptible degrees into a grin. Presently he ceased to watch his
guest. He sat watching his sister.
Not once did Albert himself glance in her direction. She was just
a dim silhouette on the outskirts of his vision. But there she was,
unmoving, and he could feel the fixture of her unseen eyes. The time
was at hand when he would have to meet those eyes. Would he flinch?
Was he master of himself?
The last scrut was powder. No temporising! He jerked his glass to his
mouth. A moment later, holding out his plate to her, he looked Emily
full in the eyes. They were Emily's eyes, but not hers alone. They
were collective eyes--that was it! They were the eyes of stark,
staring womanhood. Her face had been dead white, but now suddenly
up from her throat, over her cheeks, through the down between her
eyebrows, went a rush of colour, up over her temples, through the very
parting of her hair.
"Happen," he said without a quaver in his voice, "I'll have a bit
more, like."
She flung her arms forward on the table and buried her face in them.
It was a gesture wild and meek. It was the gesture foreseen and yet
incredible. It was recondite, inexplicable, and yet obvious. It was
the only thing to be done--and yet, by gum, she had done it.
Her brother had risen from his seat and was now at the door. "Think
I'll step round to the Works," he said, "and see if they banked up
that furnace aright."
NOTE.--_The author has in preparation a series of volumes
dealing with the life of Albert and Emily Grapp._
ENDEAVOUR
_By_
J*HN G*LSW*RTHY
The dawn of Christmas Day found London laid out in a shroud of snow.
Like a body wasted by diseases that had triumphed over it at last,
London lay stark and still now, beneath a sky that was as the closed
leaden shell of a coffin. It was what is called an old-fashioned
Christmas.
Nothing seemed to be moving except the Thames, whose embanked waters
flowed on sullenly in their eternal act of escape to the sea. All
along the wan stretch of Cheyne Walk the thin trees stood exanimate,
with not a breath of wind to stir the snow that pied their
soot-blackened branches. Here and there on the muffled ground lay a
sparrow that had been frozen in the night, its little claws sticking
up heavenward. But here and there also those tinier adventurers of the
London air, smuts, floated vaguely and came to rest on the snow--signs
that in the seeming death of civilisation some housemaids at least
survived, and some fires had been lit.
One of these fires, crackling in the grate of one of those
dining-rooms which look fondly out on the river and tolerantly across
to Battersea, was being watched by the critical eye of an aged
canary. The cage in which this bird sat was hung in the middle of
the bow-window. It contained three perches, and also a pendent hoop.
The tray that was its floor had just been cleaned and sanded. In
the embrasure to the right was a fresh supply of hemp-seed; in the
embrasure to the left the bath-tub had just been refilled with clear
water. Stuck between the bars was a large sprig of groundsel. Yet,
though all was thus in order, the bird did not eat nor drink, nor did
he bathe. With his back to Battersea, and his head sunk deep between
his little sloping shoulders, he watched the fire. The windows had for
a while been opened, as usual, to air the room for him; and the fire
had not yet mitigated the chill. It was not his custom to bathe at so
inclement an hour; and his appetite for food and drink, less keen than
it had once been, required to be whetted by example--he never broke
his fast before his master and mistress broke theirs. Time had been
when, for sheer joy in life, he fluttered from perch to perch, though
there were none to watch him, and even sang roulades, though there
were none to hear. He would not do these things nowadays save at
the fond instigation of Mr. and Mrs. Adrian Berridge. The housemaid
who ministered to his cage, the parlourmaid who laid the Berridges'
breakfast table, sometimes tried to incite him to perform for their
own pleasure. But the sense of caste, strong in his protuberant little
bosom, steeled him against these advances.
While the breakfast-table was being laid, he heard a faint tap against
the window-pane. Turning round, he perceived on the sill a creature
like to himself, but very different--a creature who, despite the
pretensions of a red waistcoat in the worst possible taste, belonged
evidently to the ranks of the outcast and the disinherited. In
previous winters the sill had been strewn every morning with
bread-crumbs. This winter, no bread-crumbs had been vouchsafed; and
the canary, though he did not exactly understand why this was so,
was glad that so it was. He had felt that his poor relations took
advantage of the Berridges' kindness. Two or three of them, as
pensioners, might not have been amiss. But they came in swarms,
and they gobbled their food in a disgusting fashion, not trifling
coquettishly with it as birds should. The reason for this, the canary
knew, was that they were hungry; and of that he was sorry. He hated
to think how much destitution there was in the world; and he could
not help thinking about it when samples of it were thrust under
his notice. That was the principal reason why he was glad that the
window-sill was strewn no more and seldom visited.
He would much rather not have seen this solitary applicant. The two
eyes fixed on his made him feel very uncomfortable. And yet, for fear
of seeming to be outfaced, he did not like to look away.
The subdued clangour of the gong, sounded for breakfast, gave him an
excuse for turning suddenly round and watching the door of the room.
A few moments later there came to him a faint odour of Harris tweed,
followed immediately by the short, somewhat stout figure of his
master--a man whose mild, fresh, pink, round face seemed to find
salvation, as it were, at the last moment, in a neatly-pointed auburn
beard.
Adrian Berridge paused on the threshold, as was his wont, with closed
eyes and dilated nostrils, enjoying the aroma of complex freshness
which the dining-room had at this hour. Pathetically a creature of
habit, he liked to savour the various scents, sweet or acrid, that
went to symbolise for him the time and the place. Here were the
immediate scents of dry toast, of China tea of napery fresh from
the wash, together with that vague, super-subtle scent which boiled
eggs give out through their unbroken shells. And as a permanent base
to these there was the scent of much-polished Chippendale, and of
bees'-waxed parquet, and of Persian rugs. To-day, moreover, crowning
the composition, there was the delicate pungency of the holly that
topped the Queen Anne mirror and the Mantegna prints.
Coming forward into the room, Mr. Berridge greeted the canary.
"Well, Amber, old fellow," he said, "a happy Christmas to you!"
Affectionately he pushed the tip of a plump white finger between the
bars. "Tweet!" he added.
"Tweet!" answered the bird, hopping to and fro along his perch.
"Quite an old-fashioned Christmas, Amber!" said Mr. Berridge, turning
to scan the weather. At sight of the robin, a little spasm of pain
contracted his face. A shine of tears came to his prominent pale eyes,
and he turned quickly away. Just at that moment, heralded by a slight
fragrance of old lace and of that peculiar, almost unseizable odour
that uncut turquoises have, Mrs. Berridge appeared.
"What is the matter, Adrian?" she asked quickly. She glanced sideways
into the Queen Anne mirror, her hand fluttering, like a pale moth, to
her hair, which she always wore braided in a fashion she had derived
from Pollaiuolo's St. Ursula.
"Nothing, Jacynth--nothing," he answered with a lightness that carried
no conviction; and he made behind his back a gesture to frighten away
the robin.
"Amber isn't unwell, is he?" She came quickly to the cage. Amber
executed for her a roulade of great sweetness. His voice had not
perhaps the fullness for which it had been noted in earlier years;
but the art with which he managed it was as exquisite as ever. It was
clear to his audience that the veteran artist was hale and hearty.
But Jacynth, relieved on one point, had a misgiving on another. "This
groundsel doesn't look very fresh, does it?" she murmured, withdrawing
the sprig from the bars. She rang the bell, and when the servant came
in answer to it said, "Oh Jenny, will you please bring up another
piece of groundsel for Master Amber? I don't think this one is quite
fresh."
This formal way of naming the canary to the servants always jarred on
her principles and on those of her husband. They tried to regard their
servants as essentially equals of themselves, and lately had given
Jenny strict orders to leave off calling them "Sir" and "Ma'am," and
to call them simply "Adrian" and "Jacynth." But Jenny, after one or
two efforts that ended in faint giggles, had reverted to the crude
old nomenclature--as much to the relief as to the mortification of the
Berridges. They did, it is true, discuss the possibility of redressing
the balance by calling the parlourmaid "Miss." But, when it came to
the point, their lips refused this office. And conversely their lips
persisted in the social prefix to the bird's name.
Somehow that anomaly seemed to them symbolic of their lives. Both of
them yearned so wistfully to live always in accordance to the nature
of things. And this, they felt, ought surely to be the line of least
resistance. In the immense difficulties it presented, and in their
constant failures to surmount these difficulties, they often wondered
whether the nature of things might not be, after all, something other
than what they thought it. Again and again it seemed to be in as
direct conflict with duty as with inclination; so that they were
driven to wonder also whether what they conceived to be duty were
not also a mirage--a marsh-light leading them on to disaster.
The fresh groundsel was brought in while Jacynth was pouring out the
tea. She rose and took it to the cage; and it was then that she too
saw the robin, still fluttering on the sill. With a quick instinct she
knew that Adrian had seen it--knew what had brought that look to his
face. She went and, bending over him, laid a hand on his shoulder.
The disturbance of her touch caused the tweed to give out a tremendous
volume of scent, making her feel a little dizzy.
"Adrian," she faltered, "mightn't we for once--it is Christmas
Day--mightn't we, just to-day, sprinkle some bread-crumbs?"
He rose from the table, and leaned against the mantelpiece, looking
down at the fire. She watched him tensely. At length, "Oh Jacynth," he
groaned, "don't--don't tempt me."
"But surely, dear, surely--"
"Jacynth, don't you remember that long talk we had last winter, after
the annual meeting of the Feathered Friends' League, and how we agreed
that those sporadic doles could do no real good--must even degrade the
birds who received them--and that we had no right to meddle in what
ought to be done by collective action of the State?"
"Yes, and--oh my dear, I do still agree, with all my heart. But if the
State will do nothing--nothing--"
"It won't, it daren't, go on doing nothing, unless we encourage it to
do so. Don't you see, Jacynth, it is just because so many people take
it on themselves to feed a few birds here and there that the State
feels it can afford to shirk the responsibility?"
"All that is fearfully true. But just now--Adrian, the look in that
robin's eyes--"
Berridge covered his own eyes, as though to blot out from his mind the
memory of that look. But Jacynth was not silenced. She felt herself
dragged on by her sense of duty to savour, and to make her husband
savour, the full bitterness that the situation could yield for
them both. "Adrian," she said, "a fearful thought came to me.
Suppose--suppose it had been Amber!"
Even before he shuddered at the thought, he raised his finger to his
lips, glancing round at the cage. It was clear that Amber had not
overheard Jacynth's remark, for he threw back his head and uttered one
of his blithest trills. Adrian, thus relieved, was free to shudder at
the thought just suggested.
"Sometimes," murmured Jacynth, "I wonder if we, holding the views we
hold, are justified in keeping Amber."
"Ah, dear, we took him in our individualistic days. We cannot
repudiate him now. It wouldn't be fair. Besides, you see, he isn't
here on a basis of mere charity. He's not a parasite, but an artist.
He gives us of his art."
"Yes, dear, I know. But you remember our doubts about the position of
artists in the community--whether the State ought to sanction them at
all."
"True. But we cannot visit those doubts on our old friend yonder, can
we, dear? At the same time, I admit that when--when--Jacynth, if
ever anything happens to Amber, we shall perhaps not be justified in
keeping another bird."
"Don't, please don't talk of such things." She moved to the window.
Snow, a delicate white powder, was falling on the coverlet of snow.
Outside, on the sill, the importunate robin lay supine, his little
heart beating no more behind the shabby finery of his breast, but
his glazing eyes half-open as though even in death he were still
questioning. Above him and all around him brooded the genius of
infinity, dispassionate, inscrutable, grey.
Jacynth turned and mutely beckoned her husband to the window.
They stood there, these two, gazing silently down.