|IT falls to some to be born, as they say, with a silver spoon in their
mouths, and the witty have made play with the thought that the wise
child chooses rich parents.
Sam Branstone lacked the completeness of that wisdom. He was born in
one of those disconsolate streets of Manchester down which the stranger,
passing by tram along a main road, hardly more delectable than its
offshoots, looks and shudders; but was born with this difference from
the many--that he was son to Anne Branstone, a notable woman, and wisdom
may be conceded him for the discrimination of his choice.
If, however, it was Anne who gave him birth and started him in life, it
was Mr. Councillor Travers who set him on his way from the mean street
of his birth and started his career, and the circumstance which led
to the intervention of Mr. Travers was due, not to Anne, but to the
occupation of Tom Branstone.
Sam’s father, Tom, was a porter at Victoria Station, Manchester, and
there was just time between morning and afternoon school for young Sam
to snatch a meal himself and to carry his father’s dinner to him in a
basin tied up in a bandanna handkerchief. In those days Victoria was
an open station and a favourite dinner-hour lounge with boys from the
neighbouring Grammar School. The attractions were partly the trains,
partly the large automatic machines which delivered a packet of sweet
biscuits in return for a penny. First one lunched frugally on the
biscuits and pocketed the balance of one’s lunch allowance to buy knives
and other essentials, then one savoured the romance of a large station
from which trains went to Blackpool and to the Yorkshire moors. Often
one saw sailors on the through trains from Liverpool to Newcastle. One
found secluded ends of platforms and ran races with luggage trucks.
One was rather a nuisance, especially when one wrestled hardily at the
platform’s giddy edge and a train came in.
Sam, as a porter’s son, was on the other side of the fence. He did not
lark at Victoria Station, and took his opinions of those who did from
his father, adding, perhaps, a touch of jealousy against these chartered
libertines who wore the silver owl upon their caps of dual blue.
That day he had delivered Tom’s dinner to him in the porters’ room and
was retracing his steps down the platform when he saw two of the Grammar
School boys emerge in a confused whirl of battle and sag, interlocked,
towards the line, hopelessly unconscious in their struggle of an
incoming train. They reached the edge, deaf to all warning cries, and
long before help could reach them, fell over it in one entangled mass.
One boy, aroused to a sense of their common danger, was on his feet
nimbly enough and across the line to safety: the other, Lance Travers,
stayed where he fell, with a leg broken against the rail. Wits left the
first lad; he could only howl as the engine swept inexorably on, and
adult help, though active, could not avail in time. Sam had no precise
recollection of what followed, and certainly acted on impulse. He dived
to the line and dragged the injured boy across, escaping death for both
by the skin of his teeth.
After that, all was confusion: an ambulance; inquiries; names taken and
so on; and Sam only came to himself when he discovered that he was being
punished for arriving late at school. It struck him as unfair, but he
did not realize that he was a hero till the evening paper told him
so. He, Samuel Branstone, had his name in the paper! Glory could go
no further, because those were the dark ages of journalism, before the
photograph illustrated all, and to read one’s name in print was then the
apogee. We have moved since those dull days, when “heart interest” was
still to be in vented.
What profound satisfaction Anne Branstone found in that sober paragraph
her son was not to know. She did not think it good for him to know, but
she went about her house with softened eyes, and Sam heard her singing
more than once; so per haps he may have guessed that she was pleased
with him.
It was more than she allowed Mr. Oscar Travers to guess, he was Lance’s
father, an estate agent with a good suburban practice, and Anne met him
at the door in a way which would have marred Sam’s future had Travers
not known that Lancashire women are apt to be undemonstrative. She found
a portly gentleman on the doorstep and thought he wore a patronizing
air. They resent patronage in Lancashire.
As a matter of fact, Travers had come to see what he could do for the
lad who had saved his boy’s life. That may be patronage, but he was
thinking of it as the barest decency.
“Good evening,” he said; “my name is Travers.”
“This is a nice upset,” she said, without inviting him to come in.
“How’s your son?”
“He’s doing very well, thank you.”
“Oh? Well, it’s more than he deserves.”
He did not argue that. “I wonder,” he said, “if you would allow me to
come in, or would you prefer me to return when your husband is at home?”
“He’s at home now. It’s his early night. He’s having his tea.”
“Shall I return when he has finished?” asked Travers with a nice
tactfulness. He knew the curious delicacy against being seen eating
by one of a superior class, as if that natural function were a deed
of shame. But Anne was for short cuts and she never considered Tom’s
feelings overmuch.
“If you’ve owt to say,” she said, “you’d better come in and get it
over.”
“I have something to say,” said Travers, entering. “Ah,” he added, as he
caught sight of Sam, “this is----?”
“It’s him,” Anne interrupted. She might have been identifying a
criminal.
“May I shake your hand?” he asked, and shook it heartily, ignoring
Anne’s muttered protest that the hand had not been washed for hours. “I
think you’re a very plucky lad.” He could have, said more than that,
and felt that as an expression of his gratitude it was hopelessly
inadequate, but Anne’s eyes forbade effusiveness, and he wanted to
propitiate Anne. He had something to propose which he had thought they
would agree to rapturously, but was not so sure about the rapture now.
For some reason, he had imagined that Sam would be one of a large family
and was disappointed to find no evidence of other children about
the room A large family would have made his proposal more certain of
acceptance.
“Any brothers and sisters, Sam?” he asked; but Sam was tongue-tied,
while Anne was silently but unmistakably asking Travers what business
of his that was. However, Tom knew his place. Travers belonged with the
tipping public, whose questions one answered.
“He has an elder sister, sir. Our Madge. She works out.” She was, in
fact, a general servant.
Travers felt his confidence ebb fast, both at this information and at
Anne’s austere disapprobation of Tom’s communicativeness. He felt it was
suggested to him that his visit was irrelevant, that Anne, this small
woman, not uncomely, with her hands on her hips, and her black hair
tightly combed into a ridiculous knob at the back, was, in fact, a rock,
and that the impulses and desires of the two hulking men, Travers and
Tom Branstone, would break in ineffectual foam against her adamantine
resolution.
She glared formidably, hating a “fuss,” judging Travers, who had invaded
her home for the purpose of making a fuss.
“Indeed,” said Travers, marking time and hardly attempting to conceal
his dismay. The longer he spent in Anne’s presence, the more uneasy he
became. She seemed to divine his purpose, and to be telling him silently
what she thought of him for having such a purpose. He had, indeed,
banked on a large family; porters, he had felt certain, were prolific,
and you may subtract one child from a family of ten without much
heart-burning, whereas an only son is a serious matter. But time brought
no graciousness to Anne’s attitude. She even ignored the sacred rites of
hospitality; though tea was on the table, she had not asked him to have
a cup. So he gave up temporizing and decided to broach his purpose at
once, before Anne reduced him to complete incoherence.
“Of course,” he said, “you know me already as Lance’s father. I don’t
know whether you happen to have heard of me beyond that?” Anne admitted
nothing, and as it was to her he spoke, it did not matter that Tom, who
had naturally spent a gossipy afternoon, was trying to signify that
he realized the importance of Travers. “I’m an estate agent, if you
understand what that means.”
Anne nodded grimly. “Rent-collector said big,” she defined.
“Well,” said Travers, intending to suggest an amended definition and
then thinking better of it. “Well, yes. I’m in the Council, too, you
know. Well, now, Mrs. Branstone, I happen to be a widower and Lance is
my only son. He means a great deal to me, and when I think how near I
came to losing him this afternoon, how certainly I had lost him hut for
the splendid presence of mind of this young hero here, I feel I owe a
debt which I can never hope to pay.”
“Mr. Travers,” said Anne, “least said is soonest mended, and debts that
you can never hope to pay are best forgotten. It’s a kindly thought of
yours to come and look us up to-night, but I’m not in the Council, and
I’m no great hand at listening to long speeches. By your leave, we’ll
take the rest as said.”
“By all means, Mrs. Branstone, so far as expressing my thanks goes. But
I have a suggestion to make. Lance, as I said, is my only son. He’s a
lonely boy, and he’d be the better for a companion of his own age about
the house. I was wondering if you would allow Sam to come and live with
us? I should send him with Lance to the Grammar School, and I think I
can promise that his future will be secured.”
Sam’s heart gave a great leap. He, Sam Bran-stone, a Grammar School boy,
one of the elect, the Olympians whose play he had envied from afar! He
looked at Anne with glittering eyes, faint with hope.
“Sam,” she said, “Mr. Travers wants you to leave us. He’s offering to
adopt you as his son. Tell him the answer.”
Anne never doubted that she was mistress of her house, and perhaps
she did not doubt it now, but, for Sam, a child with the dreadful
sensibility of a child, this moment when she demanded calmly,
implacably, in the interests of discipline, that he should himself
pronounce sentence on his soaring hopes was of a pitiable bitterness
which brought him near the breaking-point. At one moment, to be raised
to the heavens of ecstasy, and at the next to be cast down to the
blackest hell of despondency; to be promised all, and to be expected
to refuse! He was not more callous than any other child, and Anne knew
perfectly well that a Land of Heart’s Desire had been opened to him. It
was not fair, and she knew that it was not fair, to ask him to speak the
word of refusal; but she thought that it was good for him, and once she
had, by her tone, if not by her actual words, indicated the reply which
she required, she knew that he would suppress his leaping hopes and
answer, in effect, that home, be it ever so humble, was home, and
parents, whatever their status, were parents. He had a wild impulse
to defy her, to tell her that he would come to see her on Saturday
afternoons, that to wear the cap with the silver owl was the dearest
ambition of his life, but he knew that it was hopeless. Even at such
a moment as this, and with such an ally as Mr. Travers, he dared not
challenge Anne. Her ascendancy was what it had always been, absolute.
He shuffled unhappily and tried to meet Mr. Travers’ eye bravely,
but succeeded only in looking up as far as the second button of his
waistcoat.
“No,” said Sam Branstone, hero, and fled, a heartbroken, tear-washed
child, to hide his face and choke his sobs upon his pillow. And he was
named for valour in the evening paper!
“No,” repeated Anne, when he had gone, and added, anticipating argument,
“I’m a woman of few words.”
Travers knew he was fighting a losing engagement, but he had a shot in
the locker yet, and a hardy determination not to be worsted by the likes
of Anne Branstone. His pride was up, a pride which, over and above his
benevolence and his sense of the fitness of things, would not allow him
to regard the saving of his son’s life lightly. Travers counted, the
saviour of the son of Travers counted. He had offered to lift Sam
Branstone in one way, and if they would not let him do it in that way,
he would do it in another. Sam Branstone, willy nilly, was going to be
lifted.
“I suppose,” he said, covering the retreat from his first position,
“that it is of no use pointing out to you the advantages which
my proposal offers to your son?” She shook her head. “Come, Mrs.
Branstone,” he went on, conscious that it was no use and platitudinous
at that, “we all have to make sacrifices for our children.”
“I make them,” said Anne curtly. It was true.
“Yet you will not make this?”
She was thoughtful for a moment, and Travers began to hope that he was
making an impression. “I’m sure that it’s Genesis twenty-two,” she said,
“but I disremember the verse.”
“Genesis,” he repeated, mystified.
“Abraham and Isaac,” she explained her allusion. “Some sacrifices aren’t
looked for from us, and the Lord sent an angel to say so in those days,
but I’ve to be my own angel in these.”
“But Abraham,” he said, “was going to sacrifice his son to the Lord.”
“And I won’t,” she said, conveying her opinion of Travers, who had tried
to “come God Almighty over her,” as she expressed it later to Tom. But
Travers was not to be rebuffed. He had come to play Providence to Sam
(and so far granted that her allusion was apposite), but his providence
could compromise. He wasn’t an absolute Jehovah.
“If Sam may not be Lance’s home companion,” he said, “at least let
them be school companions. Let me pay his fees at the Grammar School,
and----” He was going to add “for appropriate clothes,” but something
in Anne’s attitude told him that he had gone far enough, and he stopped
short with the completion of his sentence in mid air.
Anne believed in education. She wasn’t convinced that a Grammar School
education was superior, as education, to a Parish School, but its
associations were. It gave a chance of “getting on” which transcended
anything the Parish School could offer. It was a start in life which set
one automatically above the lower rungs of the ladder.
“Yes,” she said, but said it with a difficulty which Travers noted and,
indeed, applauded. He was Lancastrian himself, and honoured her for her
independence. He knew the mother-pride, the fierce individualism which
she had subdued before she had consented to take a favour even for her
son who earned it, and wasted no more words. “I’m glad,” he said. “Good
night,” and, shaking hands, was gone.
“Finish your tea, Tom,” she said to her husband who had suspended
operations during the interview. “I want to clear away.” She stood a
moment pensively. “I’m a weak woman,” she decided.
Tom Branstone ate his tea, reserving judgment.