MR. HENRY BUTSON had fallen on good fortune. No more would he endure the
humiliation of begging a job of an unsympathetic gaffer. In future his
life would be one of ease, free from ignoble exertion and unshamed by
dungaree overalls. And he made it so. For a little while, his wife
seemed to indulge in an absurd expectation that he would resume his
search for occupation of one sort or another. Once she even hinted it,
but he soon demolished that fancy, and in terms that prevented any more
hints. He had little patience with such foolishness, indeed. The matter
was simple enough. Why did a man work? Merely to get shelter and food
and clothes and comfort, and hair-oil, whatever he wanted to drink and
smoke, and his necessary pocket-money. A man who could get these things
without working would be a fool to work; more, he would behave inhumanly
to his fellow man by excluding him from a job. As for himself, he got
what he needed easily enough, without the trouble of even taking down the
shop-shutters: a vulgar act repellent to his nature.
So he rose at ten, or eleven, or twelve, as the case might be, and donned
fine raiment; the most fashionable suit procurable from the most
fashionable shop in Aldgate. He began at Aldgate; but in time he grew
more fastidious, and went to a tailor in Leadenhall Street, a tailor
whose daily task was to satisfy the tastes of the most particular among
the ship-brokers' clerks of St. Mary Axe. His toilet complete, his curls
well oiled, Mr. Butson descended to a breakfast of solitary state--Nan's
had been hurried over hours ago. The rest of the day was given as
occasion prompted. When the weather was fine, nothing pleased him
better, nor more excellently agreed with his genteel propensities, than
to go for a stroll up West. When Harbour Lane was quiet and empty (he
seemed to choose such times for going out) he would slip round to the
station, and by train and omnibus gain the happy region. He was careful
to take with him enough money to secure some share of the polite
gratifications proper to the quarter, and minutely acquainted himself
with the manners and customs of all the bars in the Strand and about
Piccadilly Circus. And although he was a little astonished when first he
was charged eighteenpence for an American drink, he was careful not to
show it, and afterwards secretly congratulated himself on the refined
instinct that had pitched on so princely a beverage in the dark, so to
speak. He took air, too, in Hyde Park, to the great honour of his
whiskers, and much improved his manner of leaning on a rail and of
sitting in a green chair. In the evening he tried, perhaps, a music
hall, but always some of the bars, and arrived home at night rather late,
sometimes a trifle unsteady, and usually in a bad temper. Bad temper was
natural, indeed, in the circumstances; after so many hours' indulgence in
the delights of fashionable society it revolted his elegant nature to
have to return at last to a vulgar little chandler's-shop in a riverside
street, where a wife in a print bodice and a white apron was sitting up
for him; sometimes even crying--for nothing at all--as if the
circumstances were not depressing enough for him already.
These little excursions cost money, of course, but then what was the good
of keeping an ignoble little shop if you couldn't get money out of it?
And the shop did very well. Mrs. Butson and the girl--the cripple--were
boiling bacon (the smell was disgusting) all day long, and they sold it
as fast as it was cold. And other things sold excellently too. From the
time when she took the shutters down in the morning to the time when the
lad Johnny put them up at night, Mrs. Butson was unceasingly at work
serving--unless she were boiling--and scarce had five minutes for her
meals; and often the girl had to leave the bacon and help in the shop
too. Very well--all that meant profit. The woman couldn't make him
believe that it didn't, merely because the wretched details of trade
failed to interest him. That was the way of people in that class of
life--there was a touch of the miser about all of them. No matter how
the money came in, they persisted in their narrow views as to spending
it. And there was other income, in addition. The lad Johnny--he was
almost a man to look at--brought his mother eight shillings a week at the
time of the wedding, and then ten shillings, and then twelve; more, it
would increase two shillings a year; but in truth his mother was unduly
extravagant in buying him clothes. Still at anyrate there was something,
and there might be more if only Mrs. Butson would turn the girl out to
earn a little, instead of letting her waste her time reading, and
confirming her in habits of idleness. And there was the rent from the
cottage. This came every week by postal order from Bob Smallpiece, and
since it was fitting that a husband should open letters sent his wife by
a single man, Mr. Butson cashed the orders without troubling her in the
matter at all.
So that indeed he was not at all wasteful, considering both his income
and the society he moved in--for he was not slow in making acquaintances
among the affable gentility of the bars. In fact he would have done it
cheaper still but for the pestilent uncertainty of Spring Handicaps. It
would seem impossible for him to put half a sovereign on any horse
without dooming it to something very near the last place. The
distinguished society of the bars was profoundly astonished, indeed
distressed, at his ill-luck; but gave him more excellent information for
future events; information, however, that brought even worse luck with
it.
His wife showed no sympathy for his troubles--and of course there are
vexations and disappointments (such as those of the Spring Handicaps)
which are inseparable from fashionable life--but rather aggravated them
with hole-and-corner snivelling, and ridiculous attempts at persuading
him to a mean and inglorious way of life. She even hinted vulgar
suspicion of his west-end friends, and suggested that he should associate
with a long fool called Hicks, living next door--a common working man.
For a long time--many months in fact--he bore it with what patience he
might, retaliating only in such terms as seemed necessary to close her
mouth, and to convince her of his contempt for her low habit of mind, and
indeed, for herself; and when at last it grew plain that personal
punching was what was needed, he was so considerate as not to punch her
about the face, where marks would advertise the state of his domestic
affairs; careful, also, to operate not other than quietly, when they were
alone, on the same grounds of decency. And he knew that she would tell
nobody, for at least she had self-respect enough for that.
Of these things Johnny knew nothing, and Bessy only a little. Both were
glad that their stepfather was so much from home, and though Johnny's
sentiment toward him was a mere sullen contempt, the lad made no parade
of the fact,--rather aimed indeed at keeping things quiet for his
mother's sake. But Bessy fretted in secret.