The Tenway Junction
And thus the knowledge was conveyed to Mrs. Lopez that her fate in
life was not to carry her to Guatemala. At the very moment in which
she had been summoned to meet Arthur Fletcher she had been busy with
her needle preparing that almost endless collection of garments
necessary for a journey of many days at sea. And now she was
informed, by a chance expression, by a word aside, as it were, that
the journey was not to be made. "That is all over," he had said,--and
then had left her, telling her nothing further. Of course she stayed
her needle. Whether the last word had been true or false, she could
not work again, at any rate till it had been contradicted. If it were
so, what was to be her fate? One thing was certain to her;--that she
could not remain under her father's roof. It was impossible that an
arrangement so utterly distasteful as the present one, both to her
father and to herself, should be continued. But where then should
they live,--and of what nature would her life be if she should be
separated from her father?
That evening she saw her father, and he corroborated her husband's
statement. "It is all over now," he said,--"that scheme of his of
going to superintend the mines. The mines don't want him, and won't
have him. I can't say that I wonder at it."
"What are we to do, papa?"
"Ah;--that I cannot say. I suppose he will condescend still to honour
me with his company. I do not know why he should wish to go to
Guatemala or elsewhere. He has everything here that he can want."
"You know, papa, that that is impossible."
"I cannot say what with him is possible or impossible. He is bound by
none of the ordinary rules of mankind."
That evening Lopez returned to his dinner in Manchester Square, which
was still regularly served for him and his wife, though the servants
who attended upon him did so under silent and oft-repeated protest.
He said not a word more as to Arthur Fletcher, nor did he seek any
ground of quarrel with his wife. But that her continued melancholy
and dejection made anything like good-humour impossible, even on his
part, he would have been good-humoured. When they were alone she
asked him as to their future destiny. "Papa tells me you are not
going," she began by saying.
"Did I not tell you so this morning?"
"Yes;--you said so. But I did not know you were earnest. Is it all
over?"
"All over,--I suppose."
"I should have thought that you would have told me with more--more
seriousness."
"I don't know what you would have. I was serious enough. The fact
is, that your father has delayed so long the payment of the promised
money that the thing has fallen through of necessity. I do not know
that I can blame the Company."
Then there was a pause. "And now," she said, "what do you mean to
do?"
"Upon my word I cannot say. I am quite as much in the dark as you can
be."
"That is nonsense, Ferdinand."
"Thank you! Let it be nonsense if you will. It seems to me that there
is a great deal of nonsense going on in the world; but very little of
it as true as what I say now."
"But it is your duty to know. Of course you cannot stay here."
"Nor you, I suppose,--without me."
"I am not speaking of myself. If you choose, I can remain here."
"And--just throw me overboard altogether."
"If you provide another home for me, I will go to it. However poor it
may be I will go to it, if you bid me. But for you,--of course you
cannot stay here."
"Has your father told you to say so to me?"
"No;--but I can say so without his telling me. You are banishing him
from his own house. He has put up with it while he thought that you
were going to this foreign country; but there must be an end of that
now. You must have some scheme of life?"
"Upon my soul I have none."
"You must have some intentions for the future?"
"None in the least. I have had intentions, and they have
failed;--from want of that support which I had a right to expect. I
have struggled and I have failed, and now I have got no intentions.
What are yours?"
"It is not my duty to have any purpose, as what I do must depend on
your commands." Then again there was a silence, during which he lit
a cigar, although he was sitting in the drawing-room. This was a
profanation of the room on which even he had never ventured before,
but at the present moment she was unable to notice it by any words.
"I must tell papa," she said after a while, "what our plans are."
"You can tell him what you please. I have literally nothing to say to
him. If he will settle an adequate income on us, payable of course
to me, I will go and live elsewhere. If he turns me into the street
without provision, he must turn you too. That is all that I have got
to say. It will come better from you than from me. I am sorry, of
course, that things have gone wrong with me. When I found myself
the son-in-law of a very rich man I thought that I might spread my
wings a bit. But my rich father-in-law threw me over, and now I am
helpless. You are not very cheerful, my dear, and I think I'll go
down to the club."
He went out of the house and did go down to the Progress. The
committee which was to be held with the view of judging whether he
was or was not a proper person to remain a member of that assemblage
had not yet been held, and there was nothing to impede his entrance
to the club, or the execution of the command which he gave for tea
and buttered toast. But no one spoke to him; nor, though he affected
a look of comfort, did he find himself much at his ease. Among the
members of the club there was a much divided opinion whether he
should be expelled or not. There was a strong party who declared that
his conduct socially, morally, and politically, had been so bad that
nothing short of expulsion would meet the case. But there were others
who said that no act had been proved against him which the club ought
to notice. He had, no doubt, shown himself to be a blackguard, a man
without a spark of honour or honesty. But then,--as they said who
thought his position in the club to be unassailable,--what had the
club to do with that? "If you turn out all the blackguards and all
the dishonourable men, where will the club be?" was a question asked
with a great deal of vigour by one middle-aged gentleman who was
supposed to know the club-world very thoroughly. He had committed no
offence which the law could recognise and punish, nor had he sinned
against the club rules. "He is not required to be a man of honour by
any regulation of which I am aware," said the middle-aged gentleman.
The general opinion seemed to be that he should be asked to go, and
that, if he declined, no one should speak to him. This penalty was
already inflicted on him, for on the evening in question no one did
speak to him.
He drank his tea and ate his toast and read a magazine, striving to
look as comfortable and as much at his ease as men at their clubs
generally are. He was not a bad actor, and those who saw him and made
reports as to his conduct on the following day declared that he had
apparently been quite indifferent to the disagreeable incidents of
his position. But his indifference had been mere acting. His careless
manner with his wife had been all assumed. Selfish as he was, void as
he was of all principle, utterly unmanly and even unconscious of the
worth of manliness, still he was alive to the opinions of others. He
thought that the world was wrong to condemn him,--that the world did
not understand the facts of his case, and that the world generally
would have done as he had done in similar circumstances. He did not
know that there was such a quality as honesty, nor did he understand
what the word meant. But he did know that some men, an unfortunate
class, became subject to evil report from others who were more
successful, and he was aware that he had become one of those
unfortunates. Nor could he see any remedy for his position. It was
all blank and black before him. It may be doubted whether he got much
instruction or amusement from the pages of the magazine which he
turned.
At about twelve o'clock he left the club and took his way homewards.
But he did not go straight home. It was a nasty cold March night,
with a catching wind, and occasional short showers of something
between snow and rain,--as disagreeable a night for a gentleman to
walk in as one could well conceive. But he went round by Trafalgar
Square, and along the Strand, and up some dirty streets by the
small theatres, and so on to Holborn and by Bloomsbury Square up to
Tottenham Court Road, then through some unused street into Portland
Place, along the Marylebone Road, and back to Manchester Square by
Baker Street. He had more than doubled the distance,--apparently
without any object. He had been spoken to frequently by unfortunates
of both sexes, but had answered a word to no one. He had trudged on
and on with his umbrella over his head, but almost unconscious of the
cold and wet. And yet he was a man sedulously attentive to his own
personal comfort and health, who had at any rate shown this virtue in
his mode of living, that he had never subjected himself to danger by
imprudence. But now the working of his mind kept him warm, and, if
not dry, at least indifferent to the damp. He had thrown aside with
affected nonchalance those questions which his wife had asked him,
but still it was necessary that he should answer them. He did not
suppose that he could continue to live in Manchester Square in his
present condition. Nor, if it was necessary that he should wander
forth into the world, could he force his wife to wander with him. If
he would consent to leave her, his father-in-law would probably give
him something,--some allowance on which he might exist. But then of
what sort would be his life?
He did not fail to remind himself over and over again that he had
nearly succeeded. He had been the guest of the Prime Minister, and
had been the nominee chosen by a Duchess to represent her husband's
borough in Parliament. He had been intimate with Mills Happerton who
was fast becoming a millionaire. He had married much above himself in
every way. He had achieved a certain popularity and was conscious of
intellect. But at the present moment two or three sovereigns in his
pocket were the extent of his worldly wealth and his character was
utterly ruined. He regarded his fate as does a card-player who day
after day holds sixes and sevens when other men have the aces and
kings. Fate was against him. He saw no reason why he should not have
had the aces and kings continually, especially as fate had given him
perhaps more than his share of them at first. He had, however, lost
rubber after rubber,--not paying his stakes for some of the last
rubbers lost,--till the players would play with him no longer. The
misfortune might have happened to any man;--but it had happened to
him. There was no beginning again. A possible small allowance and
some very retired and solitary life, in which there would be no show
of honour, no flattery coming to him, was all that was left to him.
He let himself in at the house, and found his wife still awake. "I am
wet to the skin," he said. "I made up my mind to walk, and I would do
it;--but I am a fool for my pains." She made him some feeble answer,
affecting to be half asleep, and merely turned in her bed. "I must
be out early in the morning. Mind you make them dry my things. They
never do anything for my telling."
"You don't want them dried to-night?"
"Not to-night, of course;--but after I am gone to-morrow. They'll
leave them there without putting a hand to them, if you don't speak.
I must be off before breakfast to-morrow."
"Where are you going? Do you want anything packed?"
"No; nothing. I shall be back to dinner. But I must go down to
Birmingham, to see a friend of Happerton's on business. I will
breakfast at the station. As you said to-day, something must be done.
If it's to sweep a crossing, I must sweep it."
As she lay awake while he slept, she thought that those last words
were the best she had heard him speak since they were married. There
seemed to be some indication of a purpose in them. If he would
only sweep a crossing as a man should sweep it, she would stand
by him, and at any rate do her duty to him, in spite of all that
had happened. Alas! she was not old enough to have learned that a
dishonest man cannot begin even to sweep a crossing honestly till he
have in very truth repented of his former dishonesty. The lazy man
may become lazy no longer, but there must have been first a process
through his mind whereby laziness has become odious to him. And that
process can hardly be the immediate result of misfortune arising
from misconduct. Had Lopez found his crossing at Birmingham he would
hardly have swept it well.
Early on the following morning he was up, and before he left his
room he kissed his wife. "Good-bye, old girl," he said; "don't be
down-hearted."
"If you have anything before you to do, I will not be down-hearted,"
she said.
"I shall have something to do before night, I think. Tell your
father, when you see him, that I will not trouble him here much
longer. But tell him, also, that I have no thanks to give him for his
hospitality."
"I will not tell him that, Ferdinand."
"He shall know it, though. But I do not mean to be cross to you.
Good-bye, love." Then he stooped over her and kissed her again;--and
so he took his leave of her.
It was raining hard, and when he got into the street he looked about
for a cab, but there was none to be found. In Baker Street he got an
omnibus which took him down to the underground railway, and by that
he went to Gower Street. Through the rain he walked up to the Euston
Station, and there he ordered breakfast. Could he have a mutton chop
and some tea? And he was very particular that the mutton chop should
be well cooked. He was a good-looking man, of fashionable appearance,
and the young lady who attended him noticed him and was courteous to
him. He condescended even to have a little light conversation with
her, and, on the whole, he seemed to enjoy his breakfast. "Upon my
word, I should like to breakfast here every day of my life," he said.
The young lady assured him that, as far as she could see, there was
no objection to such an arrangement. "Only it's a bore, you know,
coming out in the rain when there are no cabs," he said. Then there
were various little jokes between them, till the young lady was quite
impressed with the gentleman's pleasant affability.
After a while he went back into the hall and took a first-class
return ticket, not for Birmingham, but for the Tenway Junction. It
is quite unnecessary to describe the Tenway Junction, as everybody
knows it. From this spot, some six or seven miles distant from
London, lines diverge east, west, and north, north-east, and
north-west, round the metropolis in every direction, and with direct
communication with every other line in and out of London. It is a
marvellous place, quite unintelligible to the uninitiated, and yet
daily used by thousands who only know that when they get there,
they are to do what some one tells them. The space occupied by the
convergent rails seems to be sufficient for a large farm. And these
rails always run one into another with sloping points, and cross
passages, and mysterious meandering sidings, till it seems to the
thoughtful stranger to be impossible that the best trained engine
should know its own line. Here and there and around there is ever a
wilderness of waggons, some loaded, some empty, some smoking with
close-packed oxen, and others furlongs in length black with coals,
which look as though they had been stranded there by chance, and were
never destined to get again into the right path of traffic. Not a
minute passes without a train going here or there, some rushing by
without noticing Tenway in the least, crashing through like flashes
of substantial lightning, and others stopping, disgorging and taking
up passengers by the hundreds. Men and women,--especially the men,
for the women knowing their ignorance are generally willing to trust
to the pundits of the place,--look doubtful, uneasy, and bewildered.
But they all do get properly placed and unplaced, so that the
spectator at last acknowledges that over all this apparent chaos
there is presiding a great genius of order. From dusky morn to dark
night, and indeed almost throughout the night, the air is loaded
with a succession of shrieks. The theory goes that each separate
shriek,--if there can be any separation where the sound is so nearly
continuous,--is a separate notice to separate ears of the coming or
going of a separate train. The stranger, as he speculates on these
pandemoniac noises, is able to realise the idea that were they
discontinued the excitement necessary for the minds of the pundits
might be lowered, and that activity might be lessened, and evil
results might follow. But he cannot bring himself to credit that
theory of individual notices.
At Tenway Junction there are half-a-dozen long platforms, on which
men and women and luggage are crowded. On one of these for a while
Ferdinand Lopez walked backwards and forwards as though waiting for
the coming of some especial train. The crowd is ever so great that
a man might be supposed to walk there from morning to night without
exciting special notice. But the pundits are very clever, and have
much experience in men and women. A well-taught pundit, who has
exercised authority for a year or two at such a station as that of
Tenway, will know within a minute of the appearance of each stranger
what is his purpose there,--whether he be going or has just come,
whether he is himself on the way or waiting for others, whether he
should be treated with civility or with some curt command,--so that
if his purport be honest all necessary assistance may be rendered
him. As Lopez was walking up and down, with smiling face and
leisurely pace, now reading an advertisement and now watching the
contortions of some amazed passenger, a certain pundit asked him
his business. He was waiting, he said, for a train from Liverpool,
intending, when his friend arrived, to go with him to Dulwich by a
train which went round the west of London. It was all feasible, and
the pundit told him that the stopping train from Liverpool was due
there in six minutes, but that the express from the north would
pass first. Lopez thanked the pundit and gave him sixpence,--which
made the pundit suspicious. A pundit hopes to be paid when he
handles luggage, but has no such expectation when he merely gives
information.
The pundit still had his eye on our friend when the shriek and the
whirr of the express from the north was heard. Lopez walked quickly
up towards the edge of the platform, when the pundit followed him,
telling him that this was not his train. Lopez then ran a few yards
along the platform, not noticing the man, reaching a spot that was
unoccupied;--and there he stood fixed. And as he stood the express
flashed by. "I am fond of seeing them pass like that," said Lopez to
the man who had followed him.
"But you shouldn't do it, sir," said the suspicious pundit. "No one
isn't allowed to stand near like that. The very hair of it might take
you off your legs when you're not used to it."
"All right, old fellow," said Lopez, retreating. The next train was
the Liverpool train; and it seemed that our friend's friend had not
come, for when the Liverpool passengers had cleared themselves off,
he was still walking up and down the platform. "He'll come by the
next," said Lopez to the pundit, who now followed him about and kept
an eye on him.
"There ain't another from Liverpool stopping here till the 2.20,"
said the pundit. "You had better come again if you mean to meet him
by that."
"He has come on part of the way, and will reach this by some other
train," said Lopez.
"There ain't nothing he can come by," said the pundit. "Gentlemen
can't wait here all day, sir. The horders is against waiting on the
platform."
"All right," said Lopez, moving away as though to make his exit
through the station.
Now Tenway Junction is so big a place, and so scattered, that it
is impossible that all the pundits should by any combined activity
maintain to the letter that order of which our special pundit had
spoken. Lopez, departing from the platform which he had hitherto
occupied, was soon to be seen on another, walking up and down, and
again waiting. But the old pundit had had his eye upon him, and had
followed him round. At that moment there came a shriek louder than
all the other shrieks, and the morning express down from Euston to
Inverness was seen coming round the curve at a thousand miles an
hour. Lopez turned round and looked at it, and again walked towards
the edge of the platform. But now it was not exactly the edge that he
neared, but a descent to a pathway,--an inclined plane leading down
to the level of the rails, and made there for certain purposes of
traffic. As he did so the pundit called to him, and then made a rush
at him,--for our friend's back was turned to the coming train. But
Lopez heeded not the call, and the rush was too late. With quick,
but still with gentle and apparently unhurried steps, he walked down
before the flying engine--and in a moment had been knocked into
bloody atoms.