I can think of that to better purpose now, and if there is one thing in
the world whose company I shall deplore in my coffin, that thing is a
Cynic. That is why I am trying as fast as I can to put down my
experiences in black and white before the black predominates.
But I must get back to my story. My poor father had left his affairs in
the utmost disorder. His chief mourners were his creditors. Apart from
these, one or two old country friends and distant relatives, I believe,
attended his funeral, but none even of them can have been profoundly
interested in the Hop, the Oyster, or the Cherry, at least in the
abstract. Dr Grose, owing to ill-health, had given up his practice and
was gone abroad. But though possibly inquiry was made after the small
creature that had been left behind, I stubbornly shut myself away in my
room under the roof, listening in a fever of apprehension to every
sinister movement in the house beneath.
Yet if a friend in need is a friend indeed, then I must confess that my
treatment of Miss Fenne was the height of ingratitude.
In my grief and desolation, the future seemed to be only a veil beyond
the immediate present, which I had neither the wish nor the power to
withdraw. Miss Fenne had no such illusions. I begged Pollie to make any
excuse she could think of to prevent her from seeing me. But at last she
pushed her way up, and doubtless, the news and the advice she brought
were the best tonic that could have been prescribed for me.
As a child I had always associated my godmother with the crocodile
(though not with Mr Bosch's charming conception of it, in his picture of
the Creation). Yet there were no tears in her faded eyes when she
explained that of my father's modest fortune not a pittance remained. In
a few days the house, with everything in it except my own small sticks
of furniture, was to be sold by auction. I must keep my door locked
against intruders. All that would be left to me was a small income of
about L110 per annum, derived from money bequeathed to me by a relative
of my mother's whom I had never seen.
"I fancy your father knew nothing about it," she concluded, "at least so
your dear _mother_ seemed to imply. But there! it's a sad business, a
sad business. And that Tapa scandal; a lamentable affair." Having thus
prepared the way, my godmother proposed that I should take up my
residence in her house, and commit my future entirely to her charge.
"You cannot be an expensive guest," she explained, "and I am sure you
will try to be a grateful one. No truly _conscientious_ godparent, my
dear child, _ever_ relinquishes the soul committed to her care. I
sometimes wonder whether your poor dear mother realized this."
But it was my soul, if that is brother to the spirit and can be
neighbour to pride, that revolted against her proposition. I had to shut
my eyes at the very remembrance of Miss Fenne's prim and musty
drawing-room. Every intimation, every jerk of her trembling head, every
pounce of her jewelled fingers only hardened my heart. Poor Miss Fenne.
Her resentment at my refusal seemed to increase her shortness of sight.
Looking in on her from my balcony, I had the advantage of her, as she
faced me in the full light in her chair, dressed up in her old lady's
clothes like a kind of human Alp among my pygmy belongings. I tried to
be polite, but this only increased her vexation. One smart tap of the
ivory ball that topped her umbrella would have been my _coup de grace_.
She eyed me, but never administered it.
At last she drew in her lips and fell silent. Then, as may happen at
such moments, her ill-temper and chagrin, even the sense of her own
dignity drooped away, and for a while in the quietness we were simply
two ill-assorted human beings, helpless in the coils of circumstance.
She composed her mouth, adjusted her bonnet strings, peered a moment
from dim old eyes out of the window, then once more looked at me.
"It must be, then, as God wills," she said in a trembling voice. "The
spirit of your poor dear mother must be judge between us. She has, we
may trust, gone to a better world."
For a moment my resolution seemed to flow away like water, and I all but
surrendered. But a rook cawed close overhead, and I bit my lip. Little
more was said, except that she would consider it her duty to find me a
comfortable and God-fearing home. But she admonished me of the future,
warned me that the world was a network of temptations, and assured me of
her prayers. So we parted. I bowed her out of my domain. It was the last
time we met. Two days afterwards I received her promised letter:--
"MY DEAR GODCHILD,--Mr Ambrose Pellew, an old _clergyman_ friend of
mine, in whose discretion and knowledge of the world I have every
confidence, has spoken for you to an old married, respectable
servant of his now living a few miles from London--a Mrs Bowater.
For the charge of thirty shillings a week she has consented to give
you board, lodging, and _reasonable_ attendance. In all the
circumstances this seems to me to be a moderate sum. Mr Pellew
assures me that Mrs B. is clean, honest, and a _practising_
Christian. When this dreadful Sale is over, I have arranged that
Pollie shall conduct you safely to what will in future be your
_home_. I trust that you will be as happy there as Providence
permits, though I cannot doubt that your poor dear mother and your
poor father, too, for that matter, would have wished
otherwise--that the roof of her old friend who was present at your
Baptism and _insisted_ on your Confirmation, should have been your
refuge and asylum now that you are absolutely alone in the world.
"However, you have rejected this proposal, and have _chosen your
own path_. I am not your legal guardian, and I am too deeply
_pained_ to refer again to your obstinacy and ingratitude. Rest
assured that, in spite of all, I shall remember you in my prayers,
and I trust, D. V., that you will escape the temptations of this
wicked world--a world in which it has pleased God, in spite of
self-sacrificing and anxious friends, to place you at so
distressing a disadvantage. But in His Sight all men are equal. Let
that be your continual consolation. See Amos vii. 2; Prov. xxxi.
24-28; Eccles. xii. 1.
"I remain, your affectionate godmother,
"EMMA E. FENNE.
"PS.--I reopen this letter to explain that your _financial_ affairs
are in the hands of Messrs Harris, Harris, and Harris, respectable
solicitors of Gray's Inn. They will remit you on every quarter
day--Christmas Day, Lady Day, June 25th and September 29th--the sum
of L28 10s. 0d. Of this you will pay L19 10s. _at once_ to Mrs
Bowater, who, I have no doubt, will advise you on the expenditure
of what remains on wearing apparel, self-improvement, missions,
charity, and so on. It _grieves_ me that from the wreckage of your
father's affairs you must not anticipate a further straw of
assistance. All his money and property will be swallowed up in the
dreadful storm that has broken over what we can only _trust_ is a
tranquil resting place. R. I. P.--E. E. F."
So sprawling and straggling was my godmother's penmanship that I spelled
her letter out at last with a minifying glass, though rather for forlorn
amusement's sake than by necessity. Not that this diminishment of her
handwriting in any sense lessened the effect upon me of the sentiments
it conveyed. They at once daunted me and gave me courage. For a little I
hesitated, then at last I thought _out_ in my heart that God might be
kinder to me than Miss Fenne wished. Indeed I was so invigorated by the
anticipation of the "wicked world," that I all but called her a
crocodile to her phantasmal face. Couldn't I--didn't I--myself "mean
well" too? What pictures and prospects of the future, of my journey, of
Mrs Bowater and the "network" pursued each other through my brain. And
what a darkness oppressed me when a voice kept repeating over in my
mind--_Harris and Harris and Harris_, as if it were a refrain to one of
my grandfather's _chansons_. _Messrs Harris and Harris and Harris_--I
_saw_ all three of them (dark men with whiskers), but trusted profoundly
they would never come to see _me_.
Nor from that day to this, through all my giddying "ups" and sobering
"downs" have I ever for a moment regretted my decision--though I might
have conveyed it with a little better grace. My body, perhaps also my
soul, would have been safer in the seclusion of my godmother's house.
But my spirit? I think it would have beaten itself to death there like a
wasp on a window-pane. Whereas--well, here I am.