“Willingly!” he said. “Shall we go in here? They like cod’s head best.”
While we stood waiting to be served I saw the usual derisive smile
pass over the fishmonger’s face. But my little old friend by no
means noticed it; he was too busy looking at the fish. “A fish is a
marvellous thing, when you come to think of it,” he murmured. “Look at
its scales. Did you ever see such mechanism?”
We bought five cod’s heads, and I left him carrying them in a bag,
evidently lost in the anticipation of five cats eating them.
After that I saw him often, going with him sometimes to buy food for
his cats, which seemed ever to increase in numbers. His talk was always
of his strays, and the marvels of creation, and that time of his life
when he played the flute at the Harmony Theatre. He had been out of a
job, it seemed, for more than ten years; and, when questioned, only
sighed and answered: “Don’t talk about it, please!”
His bumpy landlady never failed to favour me with a little
conversation. She was one of those women who have terrific consciences,
and terrible grudges against them.
“I never get out,” she would say.
“Why not?”
“Couldn’t leave the house.”
“It won’t run away!”
But she would look at me as if she thought it might, and repeat:
“Oh! I never get out.”
An extremely Scottish temperament.
Considering her descent, however, she was curiously devoid of success,
struggling on apparently from week to week, cleaning, and answering
the bell, and never getting out, and wondering why she kept my little
old friend; just as he struggled on from week to week, getting out and
collecting strays, and discovering the marvels of creation, and finding
her a funny woman. Their hands were joined, one must suppose, by that
dead child.
One July afternoon, however, I found her very much upset. He had been
taken dangerously ill three days before.
“There he is,” she said; “can’t touch a thing. It’s my belief he’s done
for himself, giving his food away all these years to those cats of his.
I shooed ’em out to-day, the nasty creatures; they won’t get in again.”
“Oh!” I said, “you shouldn’t have done that. It’ll only make him
miserable.”
She flounced her head up. “Hoh!” she said; “I wonder I’ve kept him all
this time, with his birds and his cats dirtying my house. And there he
lies, talking gibberish about them. He made me write to a Mr. Jackson,
of some theatre or other--I’ve no patience with him. And that little
bullfinch all the time perching on his pillow, the dirty little thing!
I’d have turned it out, too, only it wouldn’t let me catch it.”
“What does the doctor say?”
“Double pneumonia--caught it getting his feet wet, after some stray,
I’ll be bound. I’m nursing him. There has to be some one with him all
the time.”
He was lying very still when I went up, with the sunlight falling
across the foot of his bed, and, sure enough, the bullfinch perching on
his pillow. In that high fever he looked brighter than ever. He was not
exactly delirious, yet not exactly master of his thoughts.
“Mr. Jackson! He’ll be here soon. Mr. Jackson! He’ll do it for me. I
can ask him, if I die. A funny woman. I don’t want to eat; I’m not a
great eater--I want my breath, that’s all.”
At sound of his voice the bullfinch fluttered off the pillow and flew
round and round the room, as if alarmed at something new in the tones
that were coming from its master.
Then he seemed to recognise me. “I think I’m going to die,” he said;
“I’m very weak. It’s lucky, there’s nobody to mind. If only he’d come
soon. I wish”--and he raised himself with feeble excitement--“I wish
you’d take that wire off the window; I want my cats. She turned them
out. I want him to promise me to take them, and bully-boy, and feed
them with my money, when I’m dead.”
Seeing that excitement was certainly worse for him than cats, I took
the wire off. He fell back, quiet at once; and presently, first one and
then another cat came stealing in, till there were four or five seated
against the walls. The moment he ceased to speak the bullfinch, too,
came back to his pillow. His eyes looked most supernaturally bright,
staring out of his little, withered-up old face at the sunlight playing
on his bed; he said just audibly: “Did you ever see anything more
wonderful than that sunlight? It’s really marvellous!” After that he
fell into a sort of doze or stupor. And I continued to sit there in the
window, relieved, but rather humiliated, that he had not asked me to
take care of his cats and bullfinch.
Presently there came the sound of a motor-car in the little street
below. And almost at once the landlady appeared. For such an abrupt
woman, she entered very softly.
“Here he is,” she whispered.
I went out and found a gentleman, perhaps sixty years of age, in
a black coat, buff waistcoat, gold watch-chain, light trousers,
patent-leather boots, and a wonderfully shining hat. His face was
plump and red, with a glossy grey moustache; indeed, he seemed to
shine everywhere, save in the eyes, which were of a dull and somewhat
liverish hue.
“Mr. Jackson?”
“The same. How is the little old chap?”
Opening the door of the next room, which I knew was always empty, I
beckoned Mr. Jackson in.
“He’s really very ill; I’d better tell you what he wants to see you
about.”
He looked at me with that air of “You can’t get at me--whoever you may
be,” which belongs to the very successful.
“Right-o!” he said. “Well?”
I described the situation. “He seems to think,” I ended, “that you’ll
be kind enough to charge yourself with his strays, in case he should
die.”
Mr. Jackson prodded the unpainted wash-stand with his gold-headed cane.
“Is he really going to kick it?”
“I’m afraid so; he’s nothing but skin, bone, and spirit, as it is.”
“H’m! Stray cats, you say, and a bird! Well, there’s no accounting. He
was always a cracky little chap. So that’s it! When I got the letter
I wondered what the deuce! We pay him his five quid a quarter regular
to this day. To tell truth, he deserved it. Thirty years he was at our
shop; never missed a night. First-rate flute he was. He ought never to
have given it up, though I always thought it showed a bit of heart in
him. If a man don’t look after number one, he’s as good as gone; that’s
what I’ve always found. Why, I was no more than he was when I started.
Shouldn’t have been worth a plum if I’d gone on his plan, that’s
certain.” And he gave that profound chuckle which comes from the very
stomach of success. “We were having a rocky time at the Harmony; had
to cut down everything we could--music, well, that came about first.
Little old Moronelli, as we used to call him--old Italian days before
English names came in, you know--he was far the best of the flutes; so
I went to him and said: ‘Look here, Moronelli, which of these other
boys had better go?’ ‘Oh!’ he said--I remember his funny little old
mug now--‘has one of them to go, Mr. Jackson? Timminsa’--that was the
elder--‘he’s a wife and family; and Smetoni’--Smith, you know--‘he’s
only a boy. Times are bad for flutes.’ ‘I know it’s a bit hard,’ I
said, ‘but this theatre’s goin’ to be run much cheaper; one of ’em’s
got to get.’ ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘dear me!’ he said. What a funny little old
chap it was! Well--what do you think? Next day I had his resignation.
Give you my word I did my best to turn him. Why, he was sixty then if
he was a day--at sixty a man don’t get jobs in a hurry. But, not a bit
of it! All he’d say was: ‘I shall get a place all right!’ But that’s
it, you know--he never did. Too long in one shop. I heard by accident
he was on the rocks; that’s how I make him that allowance. But that’s
the sort of hopeless little old chap he is--no idea of himself. Cats!
Why not? I’ll take his old cats on; don’t you let him worry about that.
I’ll see to his bird, too. If I can’t give ’em a better time than ever
they have here, it’ll be funny!” And, looking round the little empty
room, he again uttered that profound chuckle: “Why, he was with us at
the Harmony thirty years--that’s time, you know; _I_ made my fortune in
it.”
“I’m sure,” I said, “it’ll be a great relief to him.”
“Oh! Ah! That’s all right. You come down to my place”--he handed me a
card: “Mr. Cyril Porteus Jackson, Ultima Thule, Wimbledon”--“and see
how I fix ’em up. But if he’s really going to kick it, I’d like to have
a look at the little old chap, just for old times’ sake.”
We went, as quietly as Mr. Jackson’s bright boots would permit, into
his room, where the landlady was sitting gazing angrily at the cats.
She went out without noise, flouncing her head as much as to say:
“Well, now you can see what I have to go through, sitting up here. I
never get out.”
Our little old friend was still in that curious stupor. He seemed
unconscious, but his blue eyes were not closed, staring brightly out
before them at things we did not see. With his silvery hair and his
flushed frailty, he had an unearthly look. After standing perhaps three
minutes at the foot of the bed, Mr. Jackson whispered:
“Well, he does look queer. Poor little old chap! You tell him from me
I’ll look after his cats and birds; he needn’t worry. And now, I think
I won’t keep the car. Makes me feel a bit throaty, you know. Don’t
move; he might come to.”
And, leaning all the weight of his substantial form on those bright
and creaking toes, he made his way to the door, flashed at me a
diamond ring, whispered hoarsely: “So long! That’ll be all right!” and
vanished. And soon I heard the whirring of his car and just saw the top
of his shiny hat travelling down the little street.
Some time I sat on there, wanting to deliver that message. An uncanny
vigil in the failing light, with those five cats--yes, five at
least--lying or sitting against the walls, staring like sphinxes at
their motionless protector. I could not make out whether it was he in
his stupor with his bright eyes that fascinated them, or the bullfinch
perched on his pillow, whom they knew perhaps might soon be in their
power. I was glad when the landlady came up and I could leave the
message with her.
When she opened the door to me next day at six o’clock I knew that he
was gone. There was about her that sorrowful, unmistakable importance,
that peculiar mournful excitement, which hovers over houses where death
has entered.
“Yes,” she said, “he went this morning. Never came round after you
left. Would you like to see him?”
We went up.
He lay, covered with a sheet, in the darkened room. The landlady pulled
the window-curtains apart. His face, as white now almost as his silvery
head, had in the sunlight a radiance like that of a small, bright angel
gone to sleep. No growth of hair, such as comes on most dead faces,
showed on those frail cheeks that were now smooth and lineless as
porcelain. And on the sheet above his chest the bullfinch sat, looking
into his face.
The landlady let the curtains fall, and we went out.
“I’ve got the cats in here”--she pointed to the room where Mr. Jackson
and I had talked--“all ready for that gentleman when he sends. But that
little bird, I don’t know what to do; he won’t let me catch him, and
there he sits. It makes me feel all funny.”
It had made me feel all funny, too.
“He hasn’t left the money for his funeral. Dreadful, the way he never
thought about himself. I’m glad I kept him, though.” And, not to my
astonishment, she suddenly began to cry.
A wire was sent to Mr. Jackson, and on the day of the funeral I went
down to ‘Ultima Thule,’ Wimbledon, to see if he had carried out his
promise.
He had. In the grounds, past the vinery, an outhouse had been cleaned
and sanded, with cushions placed at intervals against the wall, and
a little trough of milk. Nothing could have been more suitable or
luxurious.
“How’s that?” he said. “I’ve done it thoroughly.” But I noticed that he
looked a little glum.
“The only thing,” he said, “is the cats. First night they seemed all
right; and the second, there were three of ’em left. But to-day the
gardener tells me there’s not the ghost of one anywhere. It’s not for
want of feeding. They’ve had tripe, and liver, and milk--as much as
ever they liked. And cod’s heads, you know--they’re very fond of them.
I must say it’s a bit of a disappointment to me.”
As he spoke, a sandy cat which I perfectly remembered, for it had only
half its left ear, appeared in the doorway, and stood, crouching,
with its green eyes turned on us; then, hearing Mr. Jackson murmur,
“Puss, puss!” it ran for its life, slinking almost into the ground, and
vanished among some shrubs.
Mr. Jackson sighed. “Perversity of the brutes!” he said. He led me
back to the house through a conservatory full of choice orchids. A
gilt bird-cage was hanging there, one of the largest I had ever seen,
replete with every luxury the heart of bird could want.
“Is that for the bullfinch?” I asked him.
“Oh!” he said; “didn’t you know? The little beggar wouldn’t let
himself be caught, and the second morning, when they went up, there he
lay on the old chap’s body, dead. I thought it was very touchin’. But
I kept the cage hung up for you to see that I should have given him a
good time here. Oh, yes, ‘Ultima Thule’ would have done him well!”
And from a bright leather case Mr. Jackson offered me a cigar.
The question I had long been wishing to ask him slipped out of me then:
“Do you mind telling me why you called your house ‘Ultima Thule’?”
“Why?” he said. “Found it on the gate. Think it’s rather distingué,
don’t you?” and he uttered his profound chuckle.
“First-rate. The whole place is the last word in comfort.”
“Very good of you to say so,” he said. “I’ve laid out a goodish bit on
it. A man must have a warm corner to end his days in. ‘Ultima Thule,’
as you say--it isn’t bad. There’s success about it, somehow.”
And with that word in my ears, and in my eyes a vision of the little
old fellow in _his_ ‘Ultima Thule,’ with the bullfinch lying dead on a
heart that had never known success, I travelled back to town.