I
Sherman and his mother rented a small house on the north side of St.
Peter’s Square, Hammersmith. The front windows looked out on to the
old rank and green square, the windows behind on to a little patch
of garden round which the houses gathered and pressed as though they
already longed to trample it out. In this garden was a single tall pear
tree that never bore fruit.
Three years passed by without any notable event. Sherman went every day
to his office in Tower Hill Street, abused his work a great deal, and
was not unhappy perhaps. He was probably a bad clerk, but then nobody
was very exacting with the nephew of the head of the firm.
The firm of Sherman and Saunders, ship-brokers, was a long-established,
old-fashioned house. Saunders had been dead some years and old Michael
Sherman ruled alone--an old bachelor full of family pride and pride
in his wealth. He lived, for all that, in a very simple fashion. His
mahogany furniture was a little solider than other people’s perhaps.
He did not understand display. Display finds its excuse in some taste
good or bad, and in a long industrious life Michael Sherman had never
found leisure to form one. He seemed to live only from habit. Year by
year he grew more silent, gradually ceasing to regard anything but his
family and his ships. His family were represented by his nephew and his
nephew’s mother. He did not feel much affection for them. He believed
in his family--that was all. To remind him of the other goal of his
thoughts hung round his private office pictures with such inscriptions
as ‘S.S. _Indus_ at the Cape of Good Hope,’ ‘The barque _Mary_ in the
Mozambique Channel,’ ‘The barque _Livingstone_ at Port Said,’ and
many more. Every rope was drawn accurately with a ruler, and here and
there were added distant vessels sailing proudly by with all that
indifference to perspective peculiar to the drawings of sailors. On
every ship was the flag of the firm spread out to show the letters.
No man cared for old Michael Sherman. Every one liked John. Both were
silent, but the young man had sometimes a talkative fit. The old man
lived for his ledger, the young man for his dreams.
In spite of all these differences, the uncle was on the whole pleased
with the nephew. He noticed a certain stolidity that was of the family.
It sometimes irritated others. It pleased him. He saw a hundred
indications besides that made him say, ‘He is a true Sherman. We
Shermans begin that way and give up frivolity as we grow old. We are
all the same in the end.’
* * * * *
Mrs. Sherman and her son had but a small round of acquaintances--a few
rich people, clients of the house of Sherman and Saunders for the most
part. Among these was a Miss Margaret Leland who lived with her mother,
the widow of the late Henry Leland, ship-broker, on the eastern side
of St. Peter’s Square. Their house was larger than the Shermans’, and
noticeable among its fellows by the newly-painted hall-door. Within
on every side were bronzes and china vases and heavy curtains. In all
were displayed the curious and vagrant taste of Margaret Leland: the
rich Italian and mediæval draperies of pre-Raphaelite taste jostling
the brightest and vulgarest products of more native and Saxon
schools; vases of the most artistic shape and colour side by side
with artificial flowers and stuffed birds. This house belonged to the
Lelands. They had bought it in less prosperous days, and having altered
it according to their taste and the need of their growing welfare could
not decide to leave it.
Sherman was an occasional caller at the Lelands, and had certainly a
liking, though not a very deep one, for Margaret. As yet he knew little
more about her than that she wore the most fascinating hats, that the
late Lord Lytton was her favourite author, and that she hated frogs. It
is clear that she did not know that a French writer on magic says the
luxurious and extravagant hate frogs because they are cold, solitary,
and dreary. Had she done so, she would have been more cautious about
revealing her tastes.
For the rest, John Sherman was forgetting the town of Ballah. He
corresponded indeed with Mary Carton, but his laborious letter-writing
made his letters fewer and fewer. Sometimes, too, he heard from Howard,
who had a curacy at Glasgow and was on indifferent terms with his
parishioners. They objected to his way of conducting the services.
His letters were full of it. He would not give in, he said, whatever
happened. His conscience was involved.