“TRAIN rather late, surely,” remarked Mr. Chelsfield deferentially to the
Inspector.
“What do you expect?” demanded the official, turning upon him suddenly.
“What do you look for at a time like this?”
“My son!” replied the other, with pride. “Me and his mother have give
him six months at a boarding-school in Kent, and he’s coming home this
afternoon.”
“I don’t mean what you mean.” The Inspector became more calm as he
essayed the task known to railway men as knocking sense into the heads of
the public. “What I intended to say was that at this time of the year,
and with all these specials about, it’s only reasonable to assume that
the ordinary trains— See what I’m driving at, don’t you? Steam’s a
wonderful invention, but we can’t do impossibilities. Think of the old
coaching-days; what must it have been like then?”
“His mother’s waiting at home, else I shouldn’t be so eager.”
“Ah!” said the Inspector, with a touch of either sentiment or
condescension. “We all know what women are.”
Mr. Chelsfield, walking along the platform with the Inspector for the
sake of company and the encouragement of warmth, had to admit that he
felt equally anxious, and offered the present of a cigar which he
described as harmless; the official accepted it graciously, and promised
to make it the subject of an experiment on the following Sunday
afternoon. In return he gave the latest news from Chislehurst, and
guaranteed to eat his silk hat if the Emperor recovered. He felt sorry
for Napoleon, and expressed the view that it was a pity there was only
one son in the family. Nice enough young fellow, it was true; he had
shaken hands with the Inspector once, but if anything happened to the
Prince Imperial, where would they be? The Inspector’s estimate of the
right number in a family coincided with the number in his own.
“This,” said Mr. Chelsfield, with a nod in the direction of the down
line—“this is the only one we’ve got. Only one we ever had.”
“Take care not to spoil him. That’s always the risk when there’s only
one. Now my six— Here’s the train signalled. Get to the other end of
the platform, and then you can’t miss him.”
The platform was long under its wooden roof, and Mr. Chelsfield could not
move with the celerity he had shown in the early ’sixties; some of his
colleagues at the warehouse said it was rheumatism, but he declared it to
be only a slight stiffness of the joints. Passengers were going through
the barrier, and, flushed by anxiety, he looked about; presently made a
dash through the crowd, seized a lad who wore a mortar-board, and pinched
his ear affectionately. On the lad turning and demanding an explanation,
Mr. Chelsfield apologised for his error, and hurried off to continue his
search.
“Three hours and a half,” said the friendly Inspector later. “That’s
what it is before the next. It isn’t worth while waiting if you only
live up in Holborn. Hop into a ’bus outside the station.”
“I must,” Mr. Chelsfield admitted concernedly. “I’m bound to go back and
tell his mother. She’ll be out of her mind else.”
“Just my argument,” claimed the Inspector. “Now, if you’d got six, like
I have—”
Mr. Chelsfield stepped out of the omnibus at Chancery Lane, and, paying
the conductor, went along to Bedford Row with some wisps of the straw
belonging to the conveyance attached to his boots. He felt himself to be
on the edge of a painful scene, and wondered where he should find the sal
volatile if it happened to be wanted. The front door of the offices,
with its elaborate knocker, was open, and he went slowly downstairs to
the living-rooms.
“Well?” said his wife. He shook his head. “Speak up!” she commanded; “I
can’t hear when you turn your face to the wall and mumble like that.”
He gave the explanation and waited for signs of collapse.
“You’re a pretty one to send to a railway-station, and no mistake!” she
remarked, taking off the tea-cosy. “Another time I must go myself.”
“None for me, mother,” he said desolately. “I couldn’t drink it even if
you poured it out. Wonder what’s happened to the boy?”
“How should I know?”
He walked up and down the room, looked through the window at the iron
grating, and rubbed his head furiously with a red pocket-handkerchief,
the wife watching him with an amused expression. As she took the knife
in order to cut the home-made cake, still warm from the oven, he raised
his hand as a feeble protest against asking him to taste food.
“Can we have the winder open?” he asked submissively. “This room seems
stuffy to me, or else it is that I’m upset. I feel—I feel as though I
can’t sit down at this table.”
“Suppose,” said his wife, with a wink—“suppose you have a look underneath
it.”
The boy crawled out, smoothed his hair, and submitted a forehead to his
parent; the mother came near to choking with delight at the success of
her elaborate scheme, and presently leaned head exhaustedly against the
antimacassar which protected the back of the horsehair easy-chair. How
on earth had they missed each other?—that was what the delighted father
wanted to know. Henry must have jumped out of the train and cut away
uncommonly sharp. Henry, permitted under the special circumstances to
discard convention and begin with cake, working back through the toast to
the bread and butter, confessed that he had lost no time.
“But, my lad,” urged his father more seriously, “you knowed that I was
coming to meet you.”
“Had another fellow with me,” replied the boy.
“Oh!”—arresting a doubled piece of bread and butter on its way from the
plate—“and didn’t you want him to see me?”
“Don’t be silly, father!” interposed the mother. “Henry, my child, ask
if you want a second piece.”
“It wasn’t exactly that,” said the boy.
“Then, perhaps, you’ll kindly tell me what was the reason. Come on, now;
out with it! I want an answer.”
“Thought perhaps you might kiss me, father. And Watherston standing by.”
“Very natural on the boy’s part,” declared the mother. “You forget that
Henry’s growing up. He doesn’t mind it in private, but there comes a
time when a boy doesn’t want all this fuss in public.”
“If that was the only reason—” said the father.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full!” ordered his wife. “You never see
Henry do it. And one arm off the table, if you please.” Her husband
obeyed, taking up an attitude of greater precision and obvious
discomfort. “That sounds like Gleeson & Co. going out; I shall have to
see about my pail and flannel, and get up there and do their floor.”
“I thought—” began the boy sharply.
“We decided otherwise, my dear,” she said. “We didn’t settle it in a
hurry by any means; your father and me talked it over night after night,
and eventually we came to a definite conclusion.”
“You see, my lad”—the father took up the explanation—“there was money
going out for your schooling, and provisions don’t get no cheaper, and we
was both anxious not to touch the little nest-egg we’ve put by.
Besides”—with spirit, on noting the crimson look of annoyance on his
son’s face—“besides, it’s purely a matter for us to settle. If your
mother doesn’t mind going on with the housekeeper work, and if I don’t
object to her doing it, why, there’s nothing more to be said.”
The tea-table endured a silence of nearly a minute. The two parents
examined the pattern of the oilcloth that covered it.
“Pardon me,” said the boy, with the new manner acquired at the
boarding-school, “but am I to understand that my feelings are not to be
considered in the matter?”
The mother put out her hand quickly and patted her husband’s arm,
upraised to give a gesture that would emphasise his reply. He dropped
it, and took a long, loud drink from a saucer that trembled.
“We can talk about this,” she said hurriedly, “another time. We shall
have a clear fortnight, Henry, before you start work. Say grace!” They
bowed their heads, and joined in the Amen. “Did you make some nice new
friends at the boarding-school, my dear? We’ve arranged all about your
party for the fifteenth, and I think, by a little scrounging and a
hand-round supper, we ought to be able to manage twelve. Including us
three, that is. If we go over that, there’s always the risk of having
the unlucky number, and that spoils everybody’s pleasure. Come along
with me, and we can have a good talk over the arrangements whilst I’m
tying on my apern. What I was wondering was whether we should have all
boys, old friends of yours about the neighbourhood, or whether to invite
a few girls. There’s your friend Jessie,” she bustled on waggishly. “We
mustn’t let her feel neglected. Always asks after you, Jessie does.”
She lowered her voice. “Your father’s got the idea into his head that
the boarding-school may have induced you to be high and mighty, and make
you look down on them and us. But of course, my dear, I know better.”
The boy was leaning against the stout oak door later, as his mother
cleaned and hearthstoned the steps; two minutes, she remarked, and her
work would be over. In reply to his urgent appeal, she gave a promise
that so soon as he began to earn money the work should be finished for
good. A lad in a mortar-board came through from the direction of
Holborn, and strolled up on the other side, examining the numbers.
Attracted by the sound of voices, he crossed over and spoke.
“I say, my good woman,” he said, with cheerful condescension, to the
kneeling figure, “Number thirty-five, I want. These figures are so
confoundedly indistinct. Name, Chelsfield—Henry Chelsfield. Can you
tell me where I shall find him?”
“You haven’t fur to go,” she remarked, and beckoned with her handful of
flannel. “I must apologise for being caught in my disables,” she went
on, levering herself up with the aid of the pail. “Shan’t hear the last
of this for a long time. Still, as I say, we’ve all got to live.”
Her son came forward, and, waiting for the introduction, she smoothed her
grey hair with the back of a wet hand. The boy’s father came out, too,
wearing a tasselled smoking-cap rakishly; to honour the occasion he had
lighted the fellow to the cigar given away to the friendly Inspector.
“Hullo, Chelsfield!”
The boy glanced at his mother, looked over a shoulder at his father. He
hesitated for a moment, then cleared the damp steps at a single jump, and
taking his friend’s arm, led him across the roadway.
“Called round, Chelsfield,” the mortar-board lad said, “called round at
once to tell you that I find I’m engaged two deep for the evening you’ve
fixed for Drury Lane. Now, what I want to suggest is this. How about
you changing your date?”
The father and mother stood just outside the doorway, speaking no word,
but listening and waiting. The visitor made a movement to re-cross, but
Henry detained him. The mother coughed in order to give a reminder of
her presence. The visitor, breaking off in the discussion, recommended
that Henry should fetch a cap and stroll with him as far as Gray’s Inn
Road and see him into a Favorite omnibus for the return to Islington.
Henry ran in, with a mumbled explanation to his parents.
“Quite an old-fashioned bit of London here,” remarked the polite boy.
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Chelsfield, coming forward eagerly. “Oh, yes, sir.
People often notice that. Years ago, I b’lieve, quite aristocrats used
to live here. London’s changing.”
“Improving,” suggested the lad.
“I reckon the next thirty years will show a lot of difference. Me and
the wife,” he continued, with a jerk of the head towards her, “me and
her, we recollect ’Olborn, of course, long before the Viaduct was opened.
Previous to that—”
Their boy came out between them with a rush.
“Ready, Chelsfield?”
“Quite ready, Watherston,” he replied, nervously and briskly.
“Sorry to have missed seeing your people,” remarked the polite lad, as
they went off arm-in-arm. “Perhaps some other time I may have the
pleasure.”
“Perhaps!” he said.
* * * * *
The space of time mentioned by old Chelsfield elapsed, but he prevented
himself from enjoying the content of a successful prophet by commencing
rather absurdly to break up in health almost immediately after venturing
upon the tolerably safe anticipation. Amongst the changes of thirty
years was the fact that Chelsfield, as a name, had become better known;
even the folk who flew through the main streets of London on motor
omnibuses, and had to give nearly all their attention to the holding on
of hats, could not evade recognition of the hoardings; the Chelsfield
posters declined to be ignored. If you closed your eyes to these, you
were nearly sure to encounter the name in your daily paper. If you
missed it in your daily paper, it came into the letter-box, marked “Very
Important.” If you dodged it there, it confronted you on your theatre
programme at night. Leaving the theatre and endeavouring to forget the
name, you saw it at a popular corner, being written with great
deliberation in illuminated letters, as though some invisible giant had
made up his mind to grasp the rudiments of education.
Henry Chelsfield himself was not insensible to the determined appeals,
and, going home in his electric brougham, he counted them. Thus one
evening he found a dreary gap between the Cobden statue and the
Britannia, and immediately made memorandum of the circumstance in his
note-book, in order that the deplorable omission might be attended to on
the following day. All very well for the advertising agents to send him
a box for the theatre, but these people had to be kept up to the mark.
“I can be amiable enough,” he said to the clock inside the brougham, “in
private affairs, but I’m very different where money matters are
concerned.”
Chelsfield might be flattering himself, or he might be telling the truth;
anyhow he was a Londoner, with a Londoner’s weakness for orders for the
play. That was why he had left his offices early; that was why he
proposed to eat at an unusual hour; that was why, on arriving at
Hampstead, he ordered the man to bring the brougham round again at
half-past seven. He dined alone, with a portrait of a good-looking
woman, painted by Herkomer, facing him; at her side a lad, with small
eyes rather close to each other. Chelsfield lifted his glass when the
two maids had left the room and said:
“Jessie!”
He did not drink a toast to the boy.
Watherston, from a house nearer the Heath, came in as Chelsfield
pretended to smoke a cigarette—he had been thinking that one man in a
private box would present a lonely figure to the audience; the gallery
would say that he had no friends—and Watherston asked to be excused for
once from joining in a game of billiards.
“Nothing could have happened better!” cried Chelsfield, arousing himself.
“You have only to run home and jump into evening dress, and—”
“My boy wants me to take him to see the conjuring people at St. George’s
Hall.”
“You’re not spoiling that lad of yours, I hope, Watherston?”
“I’m not spoiling my lad,” retorted Watherston, speaking with emphasis.
The two men gazed at each other with the sudden acerbity of manner that
comes at times to the closest friends. Chelsfield’s eyes went presently
to the fruit on the table. “Ever hear anything of yours?” demanded
Watherston, following up his advantage.
“There’s no doubt whatever,” replied Chelsfield testily, “that he
disappeared in South Africa. I don’t want to discuss the matter again.
He was older than your boy. And you know as well as I do that after his
mother died he went to the bad.”
“You told him to stay there?”
“I can give you and your lad a lift as far as Kingsway,” said Chelsfield,
“if that’s of any use.”
“It won’t be much help to us,” replied his friend candidly; “but we shall
be company for you.”
The Watherston boy was enthusiastic about the swift ride, enthusiastic
about the performance he was about to see, enthusiastic at being with his
father, enthusiastic over everything. Chelsfield, watching him on the
way, thought that no man desired any better company than that of a
cheerful son. Arrived at Holborn, he suddenly announced that he had
decided to take the complimentary step of giving up the theatre-box and
of joining them in their visit to St. George’s Hall. As he lowered the
window and put his head out to speak to his man, the boy and father
conferred in a whisper.
“Chelsfield!” said the friend, touching his sleeve.
“What now?”
“Let us get out. I want to speak to you privately. Fact is”—on the
pavement—“fact is—you know what boys are, and I’m sure you won’t mind—but
he tells me that he would rather go with me alone; and, to tell you the
truth, I don’t want to share him this evening. You see, he goes back to
Rugby to-morrow.”
Chelsfield dismissed his brougham and decided to walk the remainder of
the way. He went with head down, and so deep in thought that it startled
him when, in a turning from the new highway, he was accosted by one of a
long file of men, waiting to march into the shelter for the night. There
were about a hundred of them—old, young, middle-aged, all imperfectly
shod, hands in pockets. He glanced along the line before replying. The
light from a lamp showed the face of one, the youngest of all.
“Right you are,” said the man who had spoken to him, in an amiable tone
of voice, “if you ’aven’t got any tobacker, you can’t give us none.”
“I’ll—I’ll go and get some,” he remarked with agitation.
“Good iron!” said the man approvingly.
Chelsfield returned from the Strand breathless, a parcel under his arm,
and, removing the string with trembling fingers, began the work of
distribution. Some of the men received the ounce gratefully, some
mentioned that it was all done for the sake of advertisement, some
demanded why he had not also brought pipes, some accepted with a snatch.
Chelsfield had not regained full control of his breathing powers when he
reached the lamp.
“No, thanks!”
“You—you are not a smoker?”
“I am a smoker; but I don’t accept anything from you.”
Chelsfield took his son’s hand and tried to pull him from his place. “I
want to speak to you, dear boy. I’ve something important to say.”
“You said something important to me once,” retorted the other doggedly,
“and you don’t have a chance of saying anything important to me again.
Be off, before I set the others on to you.” His attitude expressed
determination.
Chelsfield’s housekeeper, at breakfast the next morning, asked in her
respectful manner what he thought of the comedy he had seen the previous
night. Chelsfield told her that he considered it extremely far-fetched.