were so and so, and now.... He was forty-four when two disturbing
factors came into his life, threatening to wreck its calm tenor,
and they occurred almost simultaneously. There was a girl at the
brick-works who came from London. She was the manager’s secretary and
she worked in his office. Oh, but she was a smart piece of goods,
and the men never tired of discussing her. In the early twenties,
distinctly pretty, with a mass of chestnut hair, pert manners and a
wrist watch. Passing through the yards, she would sometimes chat with
the men at the kilns, and in their dinner hour she would laugh and
joke with them. Their estimate of her was not always expressed in
very refined or flattering language. Old Ingleton, the time-keeper,
swore she had given him the “glad-eye,” but as one of his own eyes
was glass, his confession did not carry great weight. She had never
singled Caleb out for any particular attention although she was
always friendly with him. The cataclysm came upon him quite suddenly
one day in late September. He was digging a trench by a mound covered
with nettles, and a few tall sunflowers. It was a glorious day and
the earth smelt good. He rested on his spade and was enjoying the
pleasant tranquillity of the scene, when the girl came round the
corner and looked at him. She smiled and exclaimed:
“A lovely day, Mr. Fryatt!”
He instinctively touched his hat and said “Ay.”
And that was the end of the conversation. But Caleb watched her
walking up the narrow path toward the manager’s shanty, and some
restless fever stirred within him. She was unique. He had seen
such women from a distance, smartly apparelled, walking about the
streets of London and Capetown, but he had always looked upon them as
creatures of a different world from his own, and hardly given them a
thought. But here was one smiling at him, speaking to him. After all,
she was not so remote. She was a girl, indeed, a working girl, quite
accessible and friendly. And what a lithesome, dainty figure! What an
appealing pretty face! Those lips! Ugh! A large worm wriggled free
from the side of the little trench, and quite unreasonably he cut it
in half with his spade.
From that moment forward Caleb began to think of Agnes Fareham.
Alas! He began to dream about her also. She was a note of bright and
vivid colour in the drab monotony of his life. He began to lie in
wait for her, to force his clumsy attentions upon her and she did
not seem to resent it unduly. The affair became an obsession. His
faculty for reasoning had never been considerable. In some dim way he
felt that there was the solution of all those buried yearnings and
thwarted desires which had accompanied him through life. Here was an
explanation. He was content to be held by the experience, without
formulating any plan or definite resolution. Whether the girl would
ultimately succumb to his solicitations, whether she would go away
with him, and if so how he was to manage to keep her; moreover, how
he was to face the appalling cruelty of his own attitude toward
Anne--all these questions he put behind him. For the moment they
appeared immaterial to the blinding obsession. One day while still in
this indeterminate mood he went home as usual to his mid-day dinner.
As he dismounted his bicycle and leant it against the garden fence,
Anne came out of the cottage and said:
“Caleb, there’s a gentleman to see you.”
He went inside and beheld a small keen-faced elderly man, who nodded
to him and said:
“Mr. Caleb Fryatt?”
“Ay.”
The little man examined him closely.
“I will come straight to the business I have in hand. I am the head
clerk of Rogers, Mason and Freeman, solicitors of Blaizing-Killstoke.
You, I believe, are the only child of Stephen and Mary Fryatt, late
of Cravenford?”
“Ay.”
“You may be aware that your father had a brother, named Leonard, in
Nova Scotia?”
“I’ve heard tell on ’ee.”
“Your uncle died last year. He left a little property and no will. My
principals are of opinion that you are the lawful legatee. They would
be obliged if you would pay them a visit so that the matter may be
fully determined. Here is my card.”
Caleb stared dully at the piece of pasteboard, but Anne who had
entered the cottage just previously, asked to have the business
explained to her. Caleb shouted in her ear. Then she turned to the
lawyer and said:
“And how much money did his Uncle Leonard leave? Do you know, sir?”
“Quite without prejudice, and entirely between ourselves, I believe
it is a matter of approximately four thousand pounds.”
It took the whole of the afternoon for this news thoroughly to
penetrate the skull of the fortunate legatee. Indeed, it was not till
he had had a pint of beer at “The Green Man” on the way home that
the full significance came home to him. It is to be regretted that
after his supper he returned to “The Green Man,” and for the first
time in his life Mr. Caleb Fryatt got drunk. He stood drinks lavishly
and indiscriminately. He told everyone his news. The amount became
a little distorted. It may have been due to the lawyer’s use of the
word “approximately.” This orgy acted upon him disastrously. As he
reeled up the village street, only one vision became clear to him.
Agnes! He could take her away, buy her a mansion and smart frocks.
He could take her to hotels and theatres in London. At the same
time, he could settle money on Anne. He was a millionaire. The world
belonged to him. With a tremendous effort he controlled his feet and
voice when he reached the cottage, but he went to bed at once. In
the morning he had a headache and Anne bound his head in damp linen
handkerchiefs and brought him tea.
By Monday everyone on the countryside from Cravenford to Billows Weir
knew that “Old Face,” the ugly man, known as the boy who murdered his
father, had come in for a huge fortune left by an uncle in Canada.
The first person he met in the brick-works on Monday was Agnes, who
came up to him and held out her hand:
“I believe we are to congratulate you, Mr. Fryatt.”
He smiled at her foolishly and held her hand an unnecessarily long
time. There was no doubt she had taken to him. She liked him. Could
he stir her deeper emotion?
The weeks went by in a dream. He visited the lawyers. Everything
was in order. They even offered to advance him money. He could not
visualize the full dimensions of his fortune; neither had he the
power to act upon it. He still went on at the brick-works and the
cottage, listening to Anne’s sensible admonitions to invest the
money in small amounts so as to have a nest egg for their old age.
But he could not detach this miracle of wealth from the figure of
Agnes. They had come together. They belonged to each other, fantastic
phenomena jerking him violently out of the deep rut of his existence.
One day he went into the town and bought a gold locket, set with
blue stones. He gave four pounds ten for it. He waited for Agnes
that evening and gave it to her. He had been in an agony as to
whether she would accept it, but to his delight she received it with
gratitude and thanked him bewitchingly. This seemed to bind her to
him indissolubly. A few evenings later he met her in the lane. There
was no one about. Without a word he took her in his arms and pressed
his lips to hers. She gasped and spluttered:
“Oh, Mr. Fryatt, please ... no.”
But she wasn’t angry. Oh, no, not really angry--just provocative,
more alluring than ever.... They met frequently after that, in
secret disused corners of the brick-field, in the lanes at night.
He bought her more presents, and one Saturday they went secretly
to a fair at Molesham and only returned by the last train. The men
naturally began to get wind of this illicit courtship, but as far
as he knew no rumour had penetrated the deafness of Anne. He was
drifting desperately beyond care in either respect. Two months of
this intensive worship and the madness was upon him. He said:
“You must come with me. We will run away.”
“Where, Caleb?”
“We’ll go to London.”
“Where should we stay?”
“At swell hotels. We will have a carriage. I will buy frocks and
jewels.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed.
“What about your wife?”
“I’ll make it all right. I’ll settle some money on her.”
But Agnes was not so easily won. Oh dear, no! There were tears and
emotion. You see, she was only a young and innocent girl. Suppose
he deserted her? What assurance had she? This scheming and plotting
went on for weeks. At length they came to an agreement. Agnes would
go to London with him if he would first settle a thousand pounds
upon her. It was very cheap at the price, and a fair and reasonable
bargain. One Saturday they journeyed together to his lawyers at
Blaizing-Killstoke. The deed was drawn up, and they both signed
various papers. The elopement was fixed for the following Saturday.
All the week Caleb walked like a man unconscious of his surroundings.
The purposes of his life were to be fulfilled. True, he had odd
moments of misgiving. He dared not think about Anne. Also at times
he had gloomy forebodings concerning London hotels, how to behave,
whether the people would laugh at him, what clothes to wear, whether
Agnes would quickly sicken of him. But still he had pledged himself.
He jingled the money in his pocket.... His destiny.
Friday was a disastrous day. It was cold and damp, and to his disgust
he awoke with a severe twinge of rheumatism in his left shoulder. It
made him irritable and nervous all day. Agnes was very preoccupied.
He had advanced her some money to buy frocks, and she went backward
and forward to her lodgings with large cardboard boxes. He had
selected the morrow, because Anne was going away to spend a few days
with her father. In the afternoon his rheumatism became worse, and he
became aware of the symptoms of a feverish chill. He left off work at
his usual time and cycled home. The cottage was all in darkness. He
lighted the lamp. Anne had left his supper ready for him on the tray.
The little room looked neat and tidy. She had also left a note for
him. He picked it up carelessly and held it under the lamp. This is
what he read:
Caleb dear, I hear that you have made some money over to Agnes
Fareham and that you are wishful to go away with her. My dear!
I do not want to interfere with your happiness. I thowt I had
been a good wife to you but you know best. I am goin to my
father and I shall not come back. Please God you may be happy.
Your broking hearted wife,
ANNE.
Bless you dear for all you have been to me and the happiness
you have give me.
And Caleb buried his face in his hands. Without touching his supper
he carried the lamp into the bedroom and went to bed. Curse it! How
his teeth were chattering! He would have liked a little brandy, but
there was none in the cottage, and there was no one to go and fetch
it. He wrapped himself up and rolled over, the interminable night
began. What a weak fool he was! All the experiences and temptations
of his life crowded upon him and tortured him. Idle dreams! Idle
dreams! His shoulder ached insufferably. If Anne were here, she would
rub it with that yellow oil. He could not rub his own shoulder and
back. Then she would wrap it up in a thick shawl and say:
“Silly Billy, you must be careful of the damp.”
He could visualize her moving about the room, arranging the curtain
so that there was no draught, stirring something in a cup, giving
those little dexterous pokes to the bed clothes which meant so much,
sitting placidly by the window, his coarse woollen socks in her hand.
She loved darning his socks ... doing things for him, even all the
unpleasant, ugly things of domestic life.
He ought to have some soup or gruel or something, but he could not
be bothered to make it. He turned out the lamp. And all night long
Caleb turned and fretted, and strangely enough he gave little thought
to Agnes. She was now becoming the unreality, the vain fancy, a
feather drifting on the ocean. She was nothing to him. She had no
part in that deep consciousness, amongst whose folds he had sought
so desperately to find inner relief. What was it? Where was it?
Toward dawn he slept fitfully, struggling to keep awake on account
of the disturbing dreams that crowded upon him. When things at last
became visible the first thing he was aware of was an old shawl of
his wife’s on a nail by the door, and cap which she wore to do the
housework in. The things became to him an emblem of the love she
bore him, and truth came to him with the rising of the sun. Love--the
deep secret her hand had sought; the love that struggles to endure
through any conditions, the love that as far as human nature is
concerned is permanent and indestructible. He observed its action
upon his own career. His mother’s love for his father, a love which
he had so tragically misinterpreted. Later his love for his country,
which had crept upon him across the years and whispered to him across
the endless waste of waters. And lastly the love that existed between
his wife and himself, a love that was so near and familiar to him
that he could not always see it. He sighed and the dreams no longer
worried him. It must have been some hours later that he awoke and
made himself some tea. He was still shaky, and his shoulder hurt, so
he went back to bed.
In the middle of the morning he heard the latch of the front door
click, and his heart beat rapidly.
“She has come back,” he thought. He heard some one moving in
the passage, his door opened, and on the threshold of the room
stood--Agnes! It was queer that on observing her his first thought
was with regard to his teeth. During the war he had lost three front
teeth. A loving government had presented him with a plate and three
false teeth which he always wore in daytime, but which at night, on
Anne’s advice, he always kept in a glass of water by the side of the
bed. He stretched out his hand for the teeth, and then he felt that
he would be ridiculous putting the plate in, so he left the matter
alone. She advanced into the room, and neither of them spoke. It is
difficult to know precisely what attitude Agnes had resolved to take,
but the appearance and atmosphere of that room may have altered or
modified it. She merely grinned rather uncomfortably at Caleb. He
could not have been an attractive sight. He had slept badly, and he
had not washed or shaved. He was wearing a coarse woollen nightgown,
and his three front teeth were missing. Perhaps it occurred to her
abruptly that in the round of life one has to take the unshorn
early morning with the gaily bedecked evening, and she was already
wondering whether the combination was worth while. In any case she
merely said:
“Well?”
And Caleb replied, “Hullo!”
They both looked a little ashamed then, and Agnes glanced out of the
window as though dreading some one’s approach. As he did not speak
further, she turned and said:
“You’re not coming then?”
He turned his face to the wall and answered “No.”
There was a definite expression of relief on the girl’s face. She
was very smartly dressed in a tailor-made coat and skirt. She edged
toward the door. Then she said in a mildly querulous voice:
“I knew you’d back out of it.”
Caleb sat up and exclaimed feelingly:
“I’m sorry, Agnes.”
This seemed to quite appease her, and she said:
“Anything you want, Caleb, before I go?”
The man stared thoughtfully at the ceiling before replying:
“Yes; wait a minute, Agnes.”
He took a pencil and a sheet of paper, and wrote out a telegram
addressed to his wife:
“Come back, dear, I want you.”
The girl took up the telegram and read it through thoughtfully. Then
she once more edged toward the door. She fumbled with the latch.
Suddenly she turned and said:
“That’ll be elevenpence.”
“Eh?”
“That’ll be elevenpence--for the telegram.”
“Oh, ay, that’s it. Yes, elevenpence.”
He fumbled with his trousers on the chair by the side of the bed and
produced a shilling.
“There, lass, I haven’t any change. Don’t bother about the penny.”
She took the shilling and went back to the door.
“Good-bye, Caleb.”
“Good-bye.”
When she had gone he thought it was rather queer of her to ask for
the shilling. He had already given her a thousand pounds, and many
frocks and presents. She might in any case have offered to give him
the penny change. However, he soon forgot her in the fever of anxiety
he was in as to the return of his wife. All day long no one came
near the cottage. The day was wet, and a thick white mist drifted
with the rain. He could not trouble to light the fire. He ate some
bread and cheese at mid-day, and vainly tried to rub his shoulder
with the oil. Soon after five it began to be dark again. He was
in a terror of remorse and fear. Had he destroyed the lamp of his
happiness? He buried his face in the pillow and groaned: “I didn’t
understand! I didn’t understand!”
He began to feel so weak; he was losing sense of time. He awakened
once with a start. The room seemed suddenly filled with an enveloping
comfort. He held out his arms. He felt those wet cheeks pressed close
to his. That voice so dear and familiar to him was whispering in his
ear:
“Silly Billy, I knew ye would send for me.”
THE BROWN WALLET
Giles Meiklejohn was a beaten man. Huddled in the corner of a
third class railway carriage on the journey from Epsom to London,
he sullenly reviewed the unfortunate series of episodes which had
brought him into the position he found himself. Dogged by bad
luck!... Thirty-seven years of age; married; a daughter ten years
old; nothing attained; his debts exceeding his assets; and now--out
of work!
He had tried, too. A little pampered in his up-bringing; when the
crisis came he had faced it manfully. When, during his very first
year at Oxford, the news came of his father’s bankruptcy and sudden
death from heart failure, he immediately went up to town and sought a
situation in any capacity. His mother had died many years previously,
and his only sister was married to a missionary in Burmah. His
accomplishments at that time? Well, he could play cricket and squash
rackets; he knew a smattering of Latin and a smudge of French; he
remembered a few dates in history, and he could add up and subtract
(a little unreliably). He was good looking, genial, and of excellent
physique. He had no illusions about the difficulties which faced him.
His father had always been a kind of practical visionary. Connected
with big insurance interests, he was a man of large horizons,
profound knowledge, and great ideals. Around his sudden failure and
death there had always clung an atmosphere of mystery. That he had
never expected to fail, and was unprepared for death a week before it
happened is certain. He had had plans for Giles which up to that time
he had had no opportunity of putting into operation. The end must
have been cyclonic.
Through the intervention of friends, Giles obtained a situation
as clerk in an insurance office, his wages amounting to fifteen
shillings a week, a sum he had managed to live on. In the evening he
attended classes, and studied shorthand and typewriting. At first
the freshness of this experience, aided by youth and good health,
stimulated him. But as time went on he began to realize that he had
chosen work for which he was utterly unsuited. He worked hard but
made no progress. He had not a mathematical mind; he was slow in
the up-take. The chances of promotion were remote. The men around
him seemed so quick and clever. At the end of two years he decided
to resign and try something else. If only he had been taught a
profession! After leaving the insurance office he went through
various experiences; working at a seedsman’s nursery, going round
with a circus, attempting to get on the stage and failing, working
his passage out to South Africa, more clerking, nearly dying from
enteric through drinking polluted water, working on an ostrich farm,
returning to England as a male nurse to a young man who was mentally
deficient.
It was not till he met Minting that he achieved any success at all.
They started a press-cutting agency in two rooms in Bloomsbury.
Minting was clever, and Giles borrowed fifty pounds (from whom we
will explain later). Strangely enough the press-cutting agency was a
success. After the first six months they began to do well.
It was at that time that he met Eleanor. She was secretary to Sir
Herbert Woolley, the well-known actor-manager, and she happened
to call one day concerning the matter of press-cuttings for her
employer. From the very first moment there was never any question
on either side but that both he and she had met their fate. Neither
had there been an instant’s regret on either side ever since. They
were completely devoted. With the business promising well, he married
her within three months. It is probable that if the business had not
existed he would have done the same. They went to live in a tiny flat
in Maida Vale, and a child was born the following year.
A period of unclouded happiness followed. There was no fortune to
be made out of press-cuttings, but a sufficient competence to keep
Eleanor and the child in reasonable comfort. Everything progressed
satisfactorily for three years. And then one July morning the blow
fell. At that time he and Minting were keeping a junior clerk. Giles
and Eleanor had been away to the sea for a fortnight’s holiday.
Minting was to go on the day of their return. When Giles arrived at
the office he found the clerk alone. To his surprise he heard that
Minting had not been there himself for a fortnight. He did not have
long to wait to find the solution of the mystery. The first hint came
in the discovery of a blank counterfoil. Minting had withdrawn every
penny of their small capital and vanished!
Giles did not tell his wife. He made a desperate effort to pull
the concern together, but in vain. There were a great number of
outstanding debts, and he had just nine shillings when he returned
from his holiday. He rushed round and managed to borrow a pound or
two here and there, sufficient to buy food and pay off the clerk,
but he quickly foresaw that the crash was inevitable. He had not
the business acumen of Minting, and no one seemed prepared to
invest money in a bankrupt press-cutting agency. In the midst of
his troubles the original source of the fifty pounds upon which he
started the business, wrote peremptorily demanding the money back.
He went there and begged and pleaded, but it was obvious that the
“original source” looked upon him as a waster and ne’er-do-well.
He went bankrupt, and Eleanor had to be told. She took it in just the
way he knew she would take it. She said:
“Never mind, darling. We’ll soon get on our feet again.”
She had been a competent secretary, with a knowledge of French,
bookkeeping, shorthand and typewriting. She set to work and obtained
a situation herself as secretary to the manager of a firm of
wallpaper manufacturers, housing the child during the day with a
friendly neighbour.
Giles was idle the whole of August. They gave up the flat and went
into lodgings. In September he got work as a clerk to a stationer.
His salary was thirty shillings a week, a pound less than his wife
was getting. He felt the situation bitterly. Poor Eleanor! How he had
let her down. When he spoke about it though she only laughed and said:
“If our troubles are never anything worse than financial ones,
darling, I shan’t mind.”
They continued to be only financial ones till the following year
when Eleanor became very ill. She gave birth to a child that died.
In a desperate state Giles again approached the “original source.”
After suffering considerable recrimination and bullying he managed
to extract another ten pounds, which quickly vanished. It was three
months before Eleanor was well enough to resume work, and during that
time they lived in a state of penury. Giles lived almost entirely on
tea and bread, and became very run down and thin. He pretended to
Eleanor that he had had an increase, and that he had a good lunch
every day, so that all the money he earned could be spent on her and
the baby. In the meantime he dissected desperately that grimmest of
all social propositions--the unskilled labour market. If only he
had been taught to be a boot-maker, a plumber, or a house-painter he
would have been better off. Manners may make men, but they don’t make
money, and one has to make money to live. He became envious of his
fellow clerks and shop assistants who had never tasted the luxurious
diet of a public school training. That he had brains he was fully
aware, but they had never been trained in any special direction.
They were, moreover, the kind of brains that do not adapt themselves
to commercial ends. He had always had a great affection for his
father, but he began to nurture a resentment against his memory. His
father had treated him badly, bringing him up to a life of ease and
assurance and then deserting him.