Few are the ways of the West Central district that have changed less
within the last half-century than Nevill's Court, leading from Great New
Street into Fetter Lane. Its north side still consists of the same
quaint row of small low shops that stood there--doing perhaps a little
brisker business--when George the Fourth was King; its southern side of
the same three substantial houses each behind a strip of garden, pleasant
by contrast with surrounding grimness, built long ago--some say before
Queen Anne was dead.
Out of the largest of these, passing through the garden, then well cared
for, came one sunny Sunday morning, some fifteen years before the
commencement proper of this story, one Solomon Appleyard, pushing in
front of him a perambulator. At the brick wall surmounted by wooden
railings that divides the garden from the court, Solomon paused, hearing
behind him the voice of Mrs. Appleyard speaking from the doorstep.
"If I don't see you again until dinner-time, I'll try and get on without
you, understand. Don't think of nothing but your pipe and forget the
child. And be careful of the crossings."
Mrs. Appleyard retired into the darkness. Solomon, steering the
perambulator carefully, emerged from Nevill's Court without accident. The
quiet streets drew Solomon westward. A vacant seat beneath the shade
overlooking the Long Water in Kensington Gardens invited to rest.
"Piper?" suggested a small boy to Solomon. "_Sunday Times_, _'Server_?"
"My boy," said Mr. Appleyard, speaking slowly, "when you've been mewed up
with newspapers eighteen hours a day for six days a week, you can do
without 'em for a morning. Take 'em away. I want to forget the smell of
'em."
Solomon, having assured himself that the party in the perambulator was
still breathing, crossed his legs and lit his pipe.
"Hezekiah!"
The exclamation had been wrung from Solomon Appleyard by the approach of
a stout, short man clad in a remarkably ill-fitting broad-cloth suit.
"What, Sol, my boy?"
"It looked like you," said Solomon. "And then I said to myself: 'No;
surely it can't be Hezekiah; he'll be at chapel.'"
"You run about," said Hezekiah, addressing a youth of some four summers
he had been leading by the hand. "Don't you go out of my sight; and
whatever you do, don't you do injury to those new clothes of yours, or
you'll wish you'd never been put into them. The truth is," continued
Hezekiah to his friend, his sole surviving son and heir being out of
earshot, "the morning tempted me. 'Tain't often I get a bit of fresh
air."
"Doing well?"
"The business," replied Hezekiah, "is going up by leaps and bounds--leaps
and bounds. But, of course, all that means harder work for me. It's
from six in the morning till twelve o'clock at night."
"There's nothing I know of," returned Solomon, who was something of a
pessimist, "that's given away free gratis for nothing except misfortune."
"Keeping yourself up to the mark ain't too easy," continued Hezekiah;
"and when it comes to other folks! play's all they think of. Talk
religion to them--why, they laugh at you! What the world's coming to, I
don't know. How's the printing business doing?"
"The printing business," responded the other, removing his pipe and
speaking somewhat sadly, "the printing business looks like being a big
thing. Capital, of course, is what hampers me--or, rather, the want of
it. But Janet, she's careful; she don't waste much, Janet don't."
"Now, with Anne," replied Hezekiah, "it's all the other way--pleasure,
gaiety, a day at Rosherville or the Crystal Palace--anything to waste
money."
"Ah! she was always fond of her bit of fun," remembered Solomon.
"Fun!" retorted Hezekiah. "I like a bit of fun myself. But not if
you've got to pay for it. Where's the fun in that?"
"What I ask myself sometimes," said Solomon, looking straight in front of
him, "is what do we do it for?"
"What do we do what for?"
"Work like blessed slaves, depriving ourselves of all enjoyments. What's
the sense of it? What--"
A voice from the perambulator beside him broke the thread of Solomon
Appleyard's discourse. The sole surviving son of Hezekiah Grindley,
seeking distraction and finding none, had crept back unperceived. A
perambulator! A thing his experience told him out of which excitement in
some form or another could generally be obtained. You worried it and
took your chance. Either it howled, in which case you had to run for
your life, followed--and, unfortunately, overtaken nine times out of
ten--by a whirlwind of vengeance; or it gurgled: in which case the
heavens smiled and halos descended on your head. In either event you
escaped the deadly ennui that is the result of continuous virtue. Master
Grindley, his star having pointed out to him a peacock's feather lying on
the ground, had, with one eye upon his unobservant parent, removed the
complicated coverings sheltering Miss Helvetia Appleyard from the world,
and anticipating by a quarter of a century the prime enjoyment of British
youth, had set to work to tickle that lady on the nose. Miss Helvetia
Appleyard awakened, did precisely what the tickled British maiden of to-
day may be relied upon to do under corresponding circumstances: she first
of all took swift and comprehensive survey of the male thing behind the
feather. Had he been displeasing in her eyes, she would, one may rely
upon it, have anteceded the behaviour in similar case of her descendant
of to-day--that is to say, have expressed resentment in no uncertain
terms. Master Nathaniel Grindley proving, however, to her taste, that
which might have been considered impertinence became accepted as a fit
and proper form of introduction. Miss Appleyard smiled graciously--nay,
further, intimated desire for more.
"That your only one?" asked the paternal Grindley.
"She's the only one," replied Solomon, speaking in tones less
pessimistic.
Miss Appleyard had with the help of Grindley junior wriggled herself into
a sitting posture. Grindley junior continued his attentions, the lady
indicating by signs the various points at which she was most susceptible.
"Pretty picture they make together, eh?" suggested Hezekiah in a whisper
to his friend.
"Never saw her take to anyone like that before," returned Solomon,
likewise in a whisper.
A neighbouring church clock chimed twelve. Solomon Appleyard, knocking
the ashes from his pipe, arose.
"Don't know any reason myself why we shouldn't see a little more of one
another than we do," suggested Grindley senior, shaking hands.
"Give us a look-up one Sunday afternoon," suggested Solomon. "Bring the
youngster with you."
Solomon Appleyard and Hezekiah Grindley had started life within a few
months of one another some five-and-thirty years before. Likewise within
a few hundred yards of one another, Solomon at his father's bookselling
and printing establishment on the east side of the High Street of a small
Yorkshire town; Hezekiah at his father's grocery shop upon the west side,
opposite. Both had married farmers' daughters. Solomon's natural bent
towards gaiety Fate had corrected by directing his affections to a
partner instinct with Yorkshire shrewdness; and with shrewdness go other
qualities that make for success rather than for happiness. Hezekiah, had
circumstances been equal, might have been his friend's rival for Janet's
capable and saving hand, had not sweet-tempered, laughing Annie
Glossop--directed by Providence to her moral welfare, one must
presume--fallen in love with him. Between Jane's virtues and Annie's
three hundred golden sovereigns Hezekiah had not hesitated a moment.
Golden sovereigns were solid facts; wifely virtues, by a serious-minded
and strong-willed husband, could be instilled--at all events,
light-heartedness suppressed. The two men, Hezekiah urged by his own
ambition, Solomon by his wife's, had arrived in London within a year of
one another: Hezekiah to open a grocer's shop in Kensington, which those
who should have known assured him was a hopeless neighbourhood. But
Hezekiah had the instinct of the money-maker. Solomon, after looking
about him, had fixed upon the roomy, substantial house in Nevill's Court
as a promising foundation for a printer's business.
That was ten years ago. The two friends, scorning delights, living
laborious days, had seen but little of one another. Light-hearted Annie
had borne to her dour partner two children who had died. Nathaniel
George, with the luck supposed to wait on number three, had lived on,
and, inheriting fortunately the temperament of his mother, had brought
sunshine into the gloomy rooms above the shop in High Street, Kensington.
Mrs. Grindley, grown weak and fretful, had rested from her labours.
Mrs. Appleyard's guardian angel, prudent like his protege, had waited
till Solomon's business was well established before despatching the stork
to Nevill's Court, with a little girl. Later had sent a boy, who, not
finding the close air of St. Dunstan to his liking, had found his way
back again; thus passing out of this story and all others. And there
remained to carry on the legend of the Grindleys and the Appleyards only
Nathaniel George, now aged five, and Janet Helvetia, quite a beginner,
who took lift seriously.
There are no such things as facts. Narrow-minded folk--surveyors,
auctioneers, and such like--would have insisted that the garden between
the old Georgian house and Nevill's Court was a strip of land one hundred
and eighteen feet by ninety-two, containing a laburnum tree, six laurel
bushes, and a dwarf deodora. To Nathaniel George and Janet Helvetia it
was the land of Thule, "the furthest boundaries of which no man has
reached." On rainy Sunday afternoons they played in the great, gloomy
pressroom, where silent ogres, standing motionless, stretched out iron
arms to seize them as they ran. Then just when Nathaniel George was
eight, and Janet Helvetia four and a half, Hezekiah launched the
celebrated "Grindley's Sauce." It added a relish to chops and steaks,
transformed cold mutton into a luxury, and swelled the head of Hezekiah
Grindley--which was big enough in all conscience as it was--and
shrivelled up his little hard heart. The Grindleys and the Appleyards
visited no more. As a sensible fellow ought to have seen for himself, so
thought Hezekiah, the Sauce had altered all things. The possibility of a
marriage between their children, things having remained equal, might have
been a pretty fancy; but the son of the great Grindley, whose name in
three-foot letters faced the world from every hoarding, would have to
look higher than a printer's daughter. Solomon, a sudden and vehement
convert to the principles of mediaeval feudalism, would rather see his
only child, granddaughter of the author of _The History of Kettlewell_
and other works, dead and buried than married to a grocer's son, even
though he might inherit a fortune made out of poisoning the public with a
mixture of mustard and sour beer. It was many years before Nathaniel
George and Janet Helvetia met one another again, and when they did they
had forgotten one another.
* * * * *
Hezekiah S. Grindley, a short, stout, and pompous gentleman, sat under a
palm in the gorgeously furnished drawing-room of his big house at Notting
Hill. Mrs. Grindley, a thin, faded woman, the despair of her dressmaker,
sat as near to the fire as its massive and imposing copper outworks would
permit, and shivered. Grindley junior, a fair-haired, well-shaped youth,
with eyes that the other sex found attractive, leant with his hands in
his pockets against a scrupulously robed statue of Diana, and appeared
uncomfortable.
"I'm making the money--making it hand over fist. All you'll have to do
will be to spend it," Grindley senior was explaining to his son and heir.
"I'll do that all right, dad."
"I'm not so sure of it," was his father's opinion. "You've got to prove
yourself worthy to spend it. Don't you think I shall be content to have
slaved all these years merely to provide a brainless young idiot with the
means of self-indulgence. I leave my money to somebody worthy of me.
Understand, sir?--somebody worthy of me."
Mrs. Grindley commenced a sentence; Mr. Grindley turned his small eyes
upon her. The sentence remained unfinished.
"You were about to say something," her husband reminded her.
Mrs. Grindley said it was nothing.
"If it is anything worth hearing--if it is anything that will assist the
discussion, let's have it." Mr. Grindley waited. "If not, if you
yourself do not consider it worth finishing, why have begun it?"
Mr. Grindley returned to his son and heir. "You haven't done too well at
school--in fact, your school career has disappointed me."
"I know I'm not clever," Grindley junior offered as an excuse.
"Why not? Why aren't you clever?"
His son and heir was unable to explain.
"You are my son--why aren't you clever? It's laziness, sir; sheer
laziness!"
"I'll try and do better at Oxford, sir--honour bright I will!"
"You had better," advised him his father; "because I warn you, your whole
future depends upon it. You know me. You've got to be a credit to me,
to be worthy of the name of Grindley--or the name, my boy, is all you'll
have."
Old Grindley meant it, and his son knew that he meant it. The old
Puritan principles and instincts were strong in the old gentleman--formed,
perhaps, the better part of him. Idleness was an abomination to him;
devotion to pleasure, other than the pleasure of money-making, a grievous
sin in his eyes. Grindley junior fully intended to do well at Oxford,
and might have succeeded. In accusing himself of lack of cleverness, he
did himself an injustice. He had brains, he had energy, he had
character. Our virtues can be our stumbling-blocks as well as our vices.
Young Grindley had one admirable virtue that needs, above all others,
careful controlling: he was amiability itself. Before the charm and
sweetness of it, Oxford snobbishness went down. The Sauce, against the
earnest counsel of its own advertisement, was forgotten; the pickles
passed by. To escape the natural result of his popularity would have
needed a stronger will than young Grindley possessed. For a time the
true state of affairs was hidden from the eye of Grindley senior. To
"slack" it this term, with the full determination of "swotting" it the
next, is always easy; the difficulty beginning only with the new term.
Possibly with luck young Grindley might have retrieved his position and
covered up the traces of his folly, but for an unfortunate accident.
Returning to college with some other choice spirits at two o'clock in the
morning, it occurred to young Grindley that trouble might be saved all
round by cutting out a pane of glass with a diamond ring and entering his
rooms, which were on the ground-floor, by the window. That, in mistake
for his own, he should have selected the bedroom of the College Rector
was a misfortune that might have occurred to anyone who had commenced the
evening on champagne and finished it on whisky. Young Grindley, having
been warned already twice before, was "sent down." And then, of course,
the whole history of the three wasted years came out. Old Grindley in
his study chair having talked for half an hour at the top of his voice,
chose, partly by reason of physical necessity, partly by reason of
dormant dramatic instinct, to speak quietly and slowly.
"I'll give you one chance more, my boy, and one only. I've tried you as
a gentleman--perhaps that was my mistake. Now I'll try you as a grocer."
"As a what?"
"As a grocer, sir--g-r-o-c-e-r--grocer, a man who stands behind a counter
in a white apron and his shirt-sleeves; who sells tea and sugar and
candied peel and such-like things to customers--old ladies, little girls;
who rises at six in the morning, takes down the shutters, sweeps out the
shop, cleans the windows; who has half an hour for his dinner of corned
beef and bread; who puts up the shutters at ten o'clock at night, tidies
up the shop, has his supper, and goes to bed, feeling his day has not
been wasted. I meant to spare you. I was wrong. You shall go through
the mill as I went through it. If at the end of two years you've done
well with your time, learned something--learned to be a man, at all
events--you can come to me and thank me."
"I'm afraid, sir," suggested Grindley junior, whose handsome face during
the last few minutes had grown very white, "I might not make a very
satisfactory grocer. You see, sir, I've had no experience."
"I am glad you have some sense," returned his father drily. "You are
quite right. Even a grocer's business requires learning. It will cost
me a little money; but it will be the last I shall ever spend upon you.
For the first year you will have to be apprenticed, and I shall allow you
something to live on. It shall be more than I had at your age--we'll say
a pound a week. After that I shall expect you to keep yourself."
Grindley senior rose. "You need not give me your answer till the
evening. You are of age. I have no control over you unless you are
willing to agree. You can go my way, or you can go your own."
Young Grindley, who had inherited a good deal of his father's grit, felt
very much inclined to go his own; but, hampered on the other hand by the
sweetness of disposition he had inherited from his mother, was unable to
withstand the argument of that lady's tears, so that evening accepted old
Grindley's terms, asking only as a favour that the scene of his probation
might be in some out-of-the-way neighbourhood where there would be little
chance of his being met by old friends.
"I have thought of all that," answered his father. "My object isn't to
humiliate you more than is necessary for your good. The shop I have
already selected, on the assumption that you would submit, is as quiet
and out-of-the-way as you could wish. It is in a turning off Fetter
Lane, where you'll see few other people than printers and caretakers.
You'll lodge with a woman, a Mrs. Postwhistle, who seems a very sensible
person. She'll board you and lodge you, and every Saturday you'll
receive a post-office order for six shillings, out of which you'll find
yourself in clothes. You can take with you sufficient to last you for
the first six months, but no more. At the end of the year you can change
if you like and go to another shop, or make your own arrangements with
Mrs. Postwhistle. If all is settled, you go there to-morrow. You go out
of this house to-morrow in any event."
Mrs. Postwhistle was a large, placid lady of philosophic temperament.
Hitherto the little grocer's shop in Rolls Court, Fetter Lane, had been
easy of management by her own unaided efforts; but the neighbourhood was
rapidly changing. Other grocers' shops were disappearing one by one,
making way for huge blocks of buildings, where hundreds of iron presses,
singing day and night, spread to the earth the song of the Mighty Pen.
There were hours when the little shop could hardly accommodate its crowd
of customers. Mrs. Postwhistle, of a bulk not to be moved quickly, had,
after mature consideration, conquering a natural disinclination to
change, decided to seek assistance.
Young Grindley, alighting from a four-wheeled cab in Fetter Lane, marched
up the court, followed by a weak-kneed wastrel staggering under the
weight of a small box. In the doorway of the little shop, young Grindley
paused and raised his hat.
"Mrs. Postwhistle?"
The lady, from her chair behind the counter, rose slowly.
"I am Mr. Nathaniel Grindley, the new assistant."
The weak-kneed wastrel let fall the box with a thud upon the floor. Mrs.
Postwhistle looked her new assistant up and down.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Postwhistle. "Well, I shouldn't 'ave felt instinctively
it must be you, not if I'd 'ad to pick you out of a crowd. But if you
tell me so, why, I suppose you are. Come in."
The weak-kneed wastrel, receiving to his astonishment a shilling,
departed.
Grindley senior had selected wisely. Mrs. Postwhistle's theory was that
although very few people in this world understood their own business,
they understood it better than anyone else could understand it for them.
If handsome, well-educated young gentlemen, who gave shillings to
wastrels, felt they wanted to become smart and capable grocers'
assistants, that was their affair. Her business was to teach them their
work, and, for her own sake, to see that they did it. A month went by.
Mrs. Postwhistle found her new assistant hard-working, willing, somewhat
clumsy, but with a smile and a laugh that transformed mistakes, for which
another would have been soundly rated, into welcome variations of the
day's monotony.
"If you were the sort of woman that cared to make your fortune," said one
William Clodd, an old friend of Mrs. Postwhistle's, young Grindley having
descended into the cellar to grind coffee, "I'd tell you what to do. Take
a bun-shop somewhere in the neighbourhood of a girls' school, and put
that assistant of yours in the window. You'd do a roaring business."
"There's a mystery about 'im," said Mrs. Postwhistle.
"Know what it is?"
"If I knew what it was, I shouldn't be calling it a mystery," replied
Mrs. Postwhistle, who was a stylist in her way.
"How did you get him? Win him in a raffle?"
"Jones, the agent, sent 'im to me all in a 'urry. An assistant is what I
really wanted, not an apprentice; but the premium was good, and the
references everything one could desire."
"Grindley, Grindley," murmured Clodd. "Any relation to the Sauce, I
wonder?"
"A bit more wholesome, I should say, from the look of him," thought Mrs.
Postwhistle.
The question of a post office to meet its growing need had long been
under discussion by the neighbourhood. Mrs. Postwhistle was approached
upon the subject. Grindley junior, eager for anything that might bring
variety into his new, cramped existence, undertook to qualify himself.
Within two months the arrangements were complete. Grindley junior
divided his time between dispensing groceries and despatching telegrams
and letters, and was grateful for the change.
Grindley junior's mind was fixed upon the fashioning of a cornucopia to
receive a quarter of a pound of moist. The customer, an extremely young
lady, was seeking to hasten his operations by tapping incessantly with a
penny on the counter. It did not hurry him; it only worried him.
Grindley junior had not acquired facility in the fashioning of
cornucopias--the vertex would invariably become unrolled at the last
moment, allowing the contents to dribble out on to the floor or counter.
Grindley junior was sweet-tempered as a rule, but when engaged upon the
fashioning of a cornucopia, was irritable.
"Hurry up, old man!" urged the extremely young lady. "I've got another
appointment in less than half an hour."
"Oh, damn the thing!" said Grindley junior, as the paper for the fourth
time reverted to its original shape.
An older lady, standing behind the extremely young lady and holding a
telegram-form in her hand, looked indignant.
"Temper, temper," remarked the extremely young lady in reproving tone.
The fifth time was more successful. The extremely young lady went out,
commenting upon the waste of time always resulting when boys were
employed to do the work of men. The older lady, a haughty person, handed
across her telegram with the request that it should be sent off at once.
Grindley junior took his pencil from his pocket and commenced to count.
"_Digniori_, not _digniorus_," commented Grindley junior, correcting the
word, "_datur digniori_, dative singular." Grindley junior, still
irritable from the struggle with the cornucopia, spoke sharply.
The haughty lady withdrew her eyes from a spot some ten miles beyond the
back of the shop, where hitherto they had been resting, and fixed them
for the first time upon Grindley junior.
"Thank you," said the haughty lady.
Grindley junior looked up and immediately, to his annoyance, felt that he
was blushing. Grindley junior blushed easily--it annoyed him very much.
The haughty young lady also blushed. She did not often blush; when she
did, she felt angry with herself.
"A shilling and a penny," demanded Grindley junior.
The haughty young lady counted out the money and departed. Grindley
junior, peeping from behind a tin of Abernethy biscuits, noticed that as
she passed the window she turned and looked back. She was a very pretty,
haughty lady. Grindley junior rather admired dark, level brows and
finely cut, tremulous lips, especially when combined with a mass of soft,
brown hair, and a rich olive complexion that flushed and paled as one
looked at it.
"Might send that telegram off if you've nothing else to do, and there's
no particular reason for keeping it back," suggested Mrs. Postwhistle.
"It's only just been handed in," explained Grindley junior, somewhat
hurt.
"You've been looking at it for the last five minutes by the clock," said
Mrs. Postwhistle.
Grindley junior sat down to the machine. The name and address of the
sender was Helvetia Appleyard, Nevill's Court.
Three days passed--singularly empty days they appeared to Grindley
junior. On the fourth, Helvetia Appleyard had occasion to despatch
another telegram--this time entirely in English.
"One-and-fourpence," sighed Grindley junior.
Miss Appleyard drew forth her purse. The shop was empty.
"How did you come to know Latin?" inquired Miss Appleyard in quite a
casual tone.
"I picked up a little at school. It was a phrase I happened to
remember," confessed Grindley junior, wondering why he should be feeling
ashamed of himself.
"I am always sorry," said Miss Appleyard, "when I see anyone content with
the lower life whose talents might, perhaps, fit him for the higher."
Something about the tone and manner of Miss Appleyard reminded Grindley
junior of his former Rector. Each seemed to have arrived by different
roads at the same philosophical aloofness from the world, tempered by
chastened interest in human phenomena. "Would you like to try to raise
yourself--to improve yourself--to educate yourself?"
An unseen little rogue, who was enjoying himself immensely, whispered to
Grindley junior to say nothing but "Yes," he should.
"Will you let me help you?" asked Miss Appleyard. And the simple and
heartfelt gratitude with which Grindley junior closed upon the offer
proved to Miss Appleyard how true it is that to do good to others is the
highest joy.
Miss Appleyard had come prepared for possible acceptance. "You had
better begin with this," thought Miss Appleyard. "I have marked the
passages that you should learn by heart. Make a note of anything you do
not understand, and I will explain it to you when--when next I happen to
be passing."
Grindley junior took the book--_Bell's Introduction to the Study of the
Classics_, _for Use of Beginners_--and held it between both hands. Its
price was ninepence, but Grindley junior appeared to regard it as a
volume of great value.
"It will be hard work at first," Miss Appleyard warned him; "but you must
persevere. I have taken an interest in you; you must try not to
disappoint me."
And Miss Appleyard, feeling all the sensations of a Hypatia, departed,
taking light with her and forgetting to pay for the telegram. Miss
Appleyard belonged to the class that young ladies who pride themselves on
being tiresomely ignorant and foolish sneer at as "blue-stockings"; that
is to say, possessing brains, she had felt the necessity of using them.
Solomon Appleyard, widower, a sensible old gentleman, prospering in the
printing business, and seeing no necessity for a woman regarding herself
as nothing but a doll, a somewhat uninteresting plaything the newness
once worn off, thankfully encouraged her. Miss Appleyard had returned
from Girton wise in many things, but not in knowledge of the world, which
knowledge, too early acquired, does not always make for good in young man
or woman. A serious little virgin, Miss Appleyard's ambition was to help
the human race. What more useful work could have come to her hand than
the raising of this poor but intelligent young grocer's assistant unto
the knowledge and the love of higher things. That Grindley junior
happened to be an exceedingly good-looking and charming young grocer's
assistant had nothing to do with the matter, so Miss Appleyard would have
informed you. In her own reasoning she was convinced that her interest
in him would have been the same had he been the least attractive of his
sex. That there could be danger in such relationship never occurred to
her.
Miss Appleyard, a convinced Radical, could not conceive the possibility
of a grocer's assistant regarding the daughter of a well-to-do printer in
any other light than that of a graciously condescending patron. That
there could be danger to herself! you would have been sorry you had
suggested the idea. The expression of lofty scorn would have made you
feel yourself contemptible.
Miss Appleyard's judgment of mankind was justified; no more promising
pupil could have been selected. It was really marvellous the progress
made by Grindley junior, under the tutelage of Helvetia Appleyard. His
earnestness, his enthusiasm, it quite touched the heart of Helvetia
Appleyard. There were many points, it is true, that puzzled Grindley
junior. Each time the list of them grew longer. But when Helvetia
Appleyard explained them, all became clear. She marvelled herself at her
own wisdom, that in a moment made darkness luminous to this young man;
his rapt attention while she talked, it was most encouraging. The boy
must surely be a genius. To think that but for her intuition he might
have remained wasted in a grocer's shop! To rescue such a gem from
oblivion, to polish it, was surely the duty of a conscientious Hypatia.
Two visits--three visits a week to the little shop in Rolls Court were
quite inadequate, so many passages there were requiring elucidation.
London in early morning became their classroom: the great, wide, empty,
silent streets; the mist-curtained parks, the silence broken only by the
blackbirds' amorous whistle, the thrushes' invitation to delight; the old
gardens, hidden behind narrow ways. Nathaniel George and Janet Helvetia
would rest upon a seat, no living creature within sight, save perhaps a
passing policeman or some dissipated cat. Janet Helvetia would expound.
Nathaniel George, his fine eyes fixed on hers, seemed never to tire of
drinking in her wisdom.
There were times when Janet Helvetia, to reassure herself as to the
maidenly correctness of her behaviour, had to recall quite forcibly the
fact that she was the daughter of Solomon Appleyard, owner of the big
printing establishment; and he a simple grocer. One day, raised a little
in the social scale, thanks to her, Nathaniel George would marry someone
in his own rank of life. Reflecting upon the future of Nathaniel George,
Janet Helvetia could not escape a shade of sadness. It was difficult to
imagine precisely the wife she would have chosen for Nathaniel George.
She hoped he would do nothing foolish. Rising young men so often marry
wives that hamper rather than help them.
One Sunday morning in late autumn, they walked and talked in the shady
garden of Lincoln's Inn. Greek they thought it was they had been
talking; as a matter of fact, a much older language. A young gardener
was watering flowers, and as they passed him he grinned. It was not an
offensive grin, rather a sympathetic grin; but Miss Appleyard didn't like
being grinned at. What was there to grin at? Her personal appearance?
some _gaucherie_ in her dress? Impossible. No lady in all St. Dunstan
was ever more precise. She glanced at her companion: a clean-looking,
well-groomed, well-dressed youth. Suddenly it occurred to Miss Appleyard
that she and Grindley junior were holding each other's hand. Miss
Appleyard was justly indignant.
"How dare you!" said Miss Appleyard. "I am exceedingly angry with you.
How dare you!"
The olive skin was scarlet. There were tears in the hazel eyes.
"Leave me this minute!" commanded Miss Appleyard.
Instead of which, Grindley junior seized both her hands.
"I love you! I adore you! I worship you!" poured forth young Grindley,
forgetful of all Miss Appleyard had ever told him concerning the folly of
tautology.
"You had no right," said Miss Appleyard.
"I couldn't help it," pleaded young Grindley. "And that isn't the
worst."
Miss Appleyard paled visibly. For a grocer's assistant to dare to fall
in love with her, especially after all the trouble she had taken with
him! What could be worse?
"I'm not a grocer," continued young Grindley, deeply conscious of crime.
"I mean, not a real grocer."
And Grindley junior then and there made a clean breast of the whole sad,
terrible tale of shameless deceit, practised by the greatest villain the
world had ever produced, upon the noblest and most beautiful maiden that
ever turned grim London town into a fairy city of enchanted ways.
Not at first could Miss Appleyard entirely grasp it; not till hours
later, when she sat alone in her own room, where, fortunately for
himself, Grindley junior was not, did the whole force and meaning of the
thing come home to her. It was a large room, taking up half of the top
story of the big Georgian house in Nevill's Court; but even as it was,
Miss Appleyard felt cramped.
"For a year--for nearly a whole year," said Miss Appleyard, addressing
the bust of William Shakespeare, "have I been slaving my life out,
teaching him elementary Latin and the first five books of Euclid!"
As it has been remarked, it was fortunate for Grindley junior he was out
of reach. The bust of William Shakespeare maintained its irritating
aspect of benign philosophy.
"I suppose I should," mused Miss Appleyard, "if he had told me at
first--as he ought to have told me--of course I should naturally have had
nothing more to do with him. I suppose," mused Miss Appleyard, "a man in
love, if he is really in love, doesn't quite know what he's doing. I
suppose one ought to make allowances. But, oh! when I think of it--"
And then Grindley junior's guardian angel must surely have slipped into
the room, for Miss Appleyard, irritated beyond endurance at the
philosophical indifference of the bust of William Shakespeare, turned
away from it, and as she did so, caught sight of herself in the looking-
glass. Miss Appleyard approached the glass a little nearer. A woman's
hair is never quite as it should be. Miss Appleyard, standing before the
glass, began, she knew not why, to find reasons excusing Grindley junior.
After all, was not forgiveness an excellent thing in woman? None of us
are quite perfect. The guardian angel of Grindley junior seized the
opportunity.
That evening Solomon Appleyard sat upright in his chair, feeling
confused. So far as he could understand it, a certain young man, a
grocer's assistant, but not a grocer's assistant--but that, of course,
was not his fault, his father being an old brute--had behaved most
abominably; but not, on reflection, as badly as he might have done, and
had acted on the whole very honourably, taking into consideration the
fact that one supposed he could hardly help it. Helvetia was, of course,
very indignant with him, but on the other hand, did not quite see what
else she could have done, she being not at all sure whether she really
cared for him or whether she didn't; that everything had been quite
proper and would not have happened if she had known it; that everything
was her fault, except most things, which weren't; but that of the two she
blamed herself entirely, seeing that she could not have guessed anything
of the kind. And did he, Solomon Appleyard, think that she ought to be
very angry and never marry anybody else, or was she justified in
overlooking it and engaging herself to the only man she felt she could
ever love?
"You mustn't think, Dad, that I meant to deceive you. I should have told
you at the beginning--you know I would--if it hadn't all happened so
suddenly."
"Let me see," said Solomon Appleyard, "did you tell me his name, or
didn't you?"
"Nathaniel," said Miss Appleyard. "Didn't I mention it?"
"Don't happen to know his surname, do you," inquired her father.
"Grindley," explained Miss Appleyard--"the son of Grindley, the Sauce
man."
Miss Appleyard experienced one of the surprises of her life. Never
before to her recollection had her father thwarted a single wish of her
life. A widower for the last twelve years, his chief delight had been to
humour her. His voice, as he passionately swore that never with his
consent should his daughter marry the son of Hezekiah Grindley, sounded
strange to her. Pleadings, even tears, for the first time in her life
proved fruitless.
Here was a pretty kettle of fish! That Grindley junior should defy his
own parent, risk possibly the loss of his inheritance, had seemed to both
a not improper proceeding. When Nathaniel George had said with fine
enthusiasm: "Let him keep his money if he will; I'll make my own way;
there isn't enough money in the world to pay for losing you!" Janet
Helvetia, though she had expressed disapproval of such unfilial attitude,
had in secret sympathised. But for her to disregard the wishes of her
own doting father was not to be thought of. What was to be done?
Perhaps one Peter Hope, residing in Gough Square hard by, might help
young folks in sore dilemma with wise counsel. Peter Hope, editor and
part proprietor of _Good Humour_, one penny weekly, was much esteemed by
Solomon Appleyard, printer and publisher of aforesaid paper.
"A good fellow, old Hope," Solomon would often impress upon his managing
clerk. "Don't worry him more than you can help; things will improve. We
can trust him."
Peter Hope sat at his desk, facing Miss Appleyard. Grindley junior sat
on the cushioned seat beneath the middle window. _Good Humour's_ sub-
editor stood before the fire, her hands behind her back.
The case appeared to Peter Hope to be one of exceeding difficulty.
"Of course," explained Miss Appleyard, "I shall never marry without my
father's consent."
Peter Hope thought the resolution most proper.
"On the other hand," continued Miss Appleyard, "nothing shall induce me
to marry a man I do not love." Miss Appleyard thought the probabilities
were that she would end by becoming a female missionary.
Peter Hope's experience had led him to the conclusion that young people
sometimes changed their mind.
The opinion of the House, clearly though silently expressed, was that
Peter Hope's experience, as regarded this particular case, counted for
nothing.
"I shall go straight to the Governor," explained Grindley junior, "and
tell him that I consider myself engaged for life to Miss Appleyard. I
know what will happen--I know the sort of idea he has got into his head.
He will disown me, and I shall go off to Africa."
Peter Hope was unable to see how Grindley junior's disappearance into the
wilds of Africa was going to assist the matter under discussion.
Grindley junior's view was that the wilds of Africa would afford a
fitting background to the passing away of a blighted existence.
Peter Hope had a suspicion that Grindley junior had for the moment parted
company with that sweet reasonableness that otherwise, so Peter Hope felt
sure, was Grindley junior's guiding star.
"I mean it, sir," reasserted Grindley junior. "I am--" Grindley junior
was about to add "well educated"; but divining that education was a topic
not pleasing at the moment to the ears of Helvetia Appleyard, had tact
enough to substitute "not a fool. I can earn my own living; and I should
like to get away."
"It seems to me--" said the sub-editor.
"Now, Tommy--I mean Jane," warned her Peter Hope. He always called her
Jane in company, unless he was excited. "I know what you are going to
say. I won't have it."
"I was only going to say--" urged the sub-editor in tone of one suffering
injustice.
"I quite know what you were going to say," retorted Peter hotly. "I can
see it by your chin. You are going to take their part--and suggest their
acting undutifully towards their parents."
"I wasn't," returned the sub-editor. "I was only--"
"You were," persisted Peter. "I ought not to have allowed you to be
present. I might have known you would interfere."
"--going to say we are in want of some help in the office. You know we
are. And that if Mr. Grindley would be content with a small salary--"
"Small salary be hanged!" snarled Peter.
"--there would be no need for his going to Africa."
"And how would that help us?" demanded Peter. "Even if the boy were
so--so headstrong, so unfilial as to defy his father, who has worked for
him all these years, how would that remove the obstacle of Mr.
Appleyard's refusal?"
"Why, don't you see--" explained the sub-editor.
"No, I don't," snapped Peter.
"If, on his declaring to his father that nothing will ever induce him to
marry any other woman but Miss Appleyard, his father disowns him, as he
thinks it likely--"
"A dead cert!" was Grindley junior's conviction.
"Very well; he is no longer old Grindley's son, and what possible
objection can Mr. Appleyard have to him then?"
Peter Hope arose and expounded at length and in suitable language the
folly and uselessness of the scheme.
But what chance had ever the wisdom of Age against the enthusiasm of
Youth, reaching for its object. Poor Peter, expostulating, was swept
into the conspiracy. Grindley junior the next morning stood before his
father in the private office in High Holborn.
"I am sorry, sir," said Grindley junior, "if I have proved a
disappointment to you."
"Damn your sympathy!" said Grindley senior. "Keep it till you are asked
for it."
"I hope we part friends, sir," said Grindley junior, holding out his
hand.
"Why do you irate me?" asked Grindley senior. "I have thought of nothing
but you these five-and-twenty years."
"I don't, sir," answered Grindley junior. "I can't say I love you. It
did not seem to me you--you wanted it. But I like you, sir, and I
respect you. And--and I'm sorry to have to hurt you, sir."
"And you are determined to give up all your prospects, all the money, for
the sake of this--this girl?"
"It doesn't seem like giving up anything, sir," replied Grindley junior,
simply.
"It isn't so much as I thought it was going to be," said the old man,
after a pause. "Perhaps it is for the best. I might have been more
obstinate if things had been going all right. The Lord has chastened
me."
"Isn't the business doing well, Dad?" asked the young man, with sorrow in
his voice.
"What's it got to do with you?" snapped his father. "You've cut yourself
adrift from it. You leave me now I am going down."
Grindley junior, not knowing what to say, put his arms round the little
old man.
And in this way Tommy's brilliant scheme fell through and came to naught.
Instead, old Grindley visited once again the big house in Nevill's Court,
and remained long closeted with old Solomon in the office on the second
floor. It was late in the evening when Solomon opened the door and
called upstairs to Janet Helvetia to come down.
"I used to know you long ago," said Hezekiah Grindley, rising. "You were
quite a little girl then."
Later, the troublesome Sauce disappeared entirely, cut out by newer
flavours. Grindley junior studied the printing business. It almost
seemed as if old Appleyard had been waiting but for this. Some six
months later they found him dead in his counting-house. Grindley junior
became the printer and publisher of _Good Humour_.