“AUNT kept on saying I ought to bring her up to London with me.” The
perturbed lad examined closely the peak of his cap. “What the others
seeggested was that I should get you to go down to Railway Terrace and
argy it all out with my late landlady. One of the ticket collectors said
there wasn’t nobody on the station who could make himself so unpleasant
as you, Mr. Swan, when you felt so inclined.”
“I do my best,” admitted Porter Swan.
“’Nother one recommended you should go down there and knock at the door
and pretend to have had a drop or two too much.”
“Why pretend?”
The new porter had endured a hard week; all the tricks of an inventive
staff had been played upon him, and Porter Swan took a lively interest in
these, prompting colleagues to further efforts. Now that young Mannering
arrived with his troubles and appealed for help, games were set aside.
“She’s evidently a terror,” admitted Porter Swan presently. “If you’d
only come and asked me at the outset I might have told you where to go.
’Pon me word, I don’t know quite now what to be up to!”
“If you don’t,” said young Mannering hopelessly, “then no one does.”
“Why not go back and make the best of it for a while?”
“Mr. Swan,” declared the youth tearfully, “I do assure you her chops are
worse than her vegetables, and her vegetables worse than her chops. I
was bound to leave.”
“And you want your property, then, without paying too much?”
“I’d rayther get it without paying nothing at all.”
Porter Swan went off duty at seven, having first washed with unusual
vigour and changed his official headgear for the bowler hat of private
life. Near the suburban station he bought a cigar, and, lighting it,
strode towards Railway Terrace, rehearsing the coming debate on the way.
At the door of No. 17 he gave a sharp, definite knock and frowned at some
children who ran up to watch the course of events. He had to knock
again, and this time also rattled the flap of the letter-box to express
impatience.
“Well?” asked the trim, determined woman at the open doorway. “What are
you kicking up all this row for?”
“I don’t want to make any unpleasantness, or any un-anything else,” he
began truculently, “but you’ve got a tin box belonging to one of our
young men, and I have to request, ma’am, that you hand it over to me at
your early convenience.”
“Pay me his week’s board and lodging, and you can take not only the tin
box, but all that’s in it.”
“Goes against the grain,” he said loudly, “to argue with a lady, but I
ask you one simple question. Have you, since you’ve taken to letting,
ever had a lodger that stayed so long as a month?”
“The last two,” she replied calmly, “stayed until they got married.”
“They must have had iron constitutions,” he argued.
“Martha!” she called, turning her head.
“Yes, mother.”
“Did you hear what this gentleman said?”
“Yes, mother.”
“It’s as well,” she remarked to him, “to have a witness. Makes all the
difference in a court of law.” She found her handkerchief. “I’ve always
made it a special boast that I never had to tell a lodger to go, and I do
think it’s hard—”
“Look here, ma’am,” said Porter Swan, still in aggressive tones, “we
don’t want to quarrel. We want to arrange this trifling affair in a
nice, sensible, amicable way.”
“If you’re going to settle it,” she said, “I’ll go and make out the
bill.”
“Let me understand first of all,” repressing annoyance. “What does your
claim actually amount to?”
She mentioned the sum.
“And you’ve got the assurance to stand there and demand all that for
keeping this young country lad for three days! Why, it’s my opinion
you’re nothing more nor less than a female swindler.”
“Martha!” she called. “Are you still listening, dear?”
Porter Swan went on to the house of his own landlady, where he complained
with bitterness of the absence of a mat and the condition of the
wallpaper; she soothed him with a cup of tea so excellent that it stood
outside the pale of criticism. In his room he used the hair-brush with
considerable fierceness, a process that seemed to arouse ideas, for after
a few moments’ consideration he changed his collar and fixed a necktie
hitherto reserved for Sundays, Good Friday, and Christmas Day. Then he
set out, whistling as he went, announcing cheerfully to his landlady that
he would return in less than half an hour. If her husband came in, she
was to beg him to stay up: Porter Swan would have something to relate to
him. In Douglas Street he purchased a threepenny bunch of
chrysanthemums—all white.
At the door of the house in Railway Terrace he gave this time a
deferential knock. The child answered it, crying to her mother that the
man with the red face had called again. Swan asked the little girl
whether she cared for flowers, and made a genial presentation.
“Sorry to trouble you once more, ma’am,” he said, taking off his hat and
throwing away the end of the cigar, “but I’ve come round to apologise.
In the heat of argument I used one or two remarks I’d no business to use
to any lady, and if you’ll kindly dismiss them from your mind I shall
esteem it a favour.”
“Look what he’s give me, mother,” said the child.
“A sweet-faced little thing,” mentioned Swan, gazing down at the
youngster sentimentally. “I’ve often thought that if ever I did get
married— Only”—with a regretful shrug of the right shoulder—“I’ve never
been lucky enough to find any one that cared for me. That accounts for
my want of good manners.”
“It is a bit noticeable,” she agreed.
“It’s partly, too,” he contended, “the result of good nature. This young
chap, he appealed to me to help him, and I, foolish like, consented to do
my best. Never occurred to me that I should be no use at all when I set
myself against the sharpness of a woman. When a woman’s got a clear head
and a certain amount of good looks, no man has the leastest chance.” He
looked around the passage for a new subject. “Is this the late lamented,
may I ask, ma’am?”
“That’s Lord Kitchener,” she answered, not displeased. “Would you care
to come in and sit down for a bit? I expect you’re tired, running about
all over the place. Martha dear, you come in, too, and let us see how
nicely you can arrange the flowers. That,” entering the front room and
pointing to a large, tinted photograph, “that was Mr. Rickards.”
“Sensible sort of forehead,” said Porter Swan guardedly.
“More than could be said of what was inside it. He was always talking
about what he’d put by in the Railway Savings Bank, and every pay day he
used to come home and say, ‘It’s adding up rapidly,’ and ‘You won’t want
for nothing, my love, if I should be took away.’ And,” with acerbity,
“when he did go off, I found that instead of having about forty pounds
there—enough to give me the chance of opening a little business—he hadn’t
put by as many shillings. Not as many pence.”
“Some men are like that.”
“All men are like that,” she insisted.
“No, no, no!” protested Swan. “We’ve got our faults, but we haven’t got
the same kind of faults. Most of us are straightforward. How do you
manage to rub along, ma’am, if it isn’t a rude question?”
“It is a rude question; but I do dressmaking, and I take lodgers.”
“You take in lodgers?”
She smiled, and Swan could not help thinking that only trouble interfered
with her good looks. She sent the child to the scullery for a jug of
water.
“Not for me,” he insisted. “I shall have something with my supper, later
on.”
“It’s for the flowers,” as the child obeyed. “And I didn’t want her to
hear what I was about to tell you,” she went on confidentially. “The
fact is— As you say, it has been an extraordinary autumn. The sun
to-day was enough to make people’s eyes ache.”
“Ain’t spilt a drop,” announced the child, who had returned swiftly.
Swan moved his chair nearer.
“You’ve got eyes,” he said, lowering his voice, “eyes like the
head-lights on an engine.”
She tried to frown, and gave a meaning glance in the direction of the
occupied little girl.
“I shall be dreamin’ of ’em for weeks,” he whispered earnestly. “I’m not
one to take much notice of females in a general way—a woman hater; that’s
what they call me in the porters’ room—but as I was going to say, I can
quite well imagine a chap like myself, going on for years just racketing
about and then coming across a pair of eyes like yours and saying to
himself, ‘Swan, old man, it’s time you began to take matters seriously!’”
“Martha, my dear, go on with your work. Me and Mr. Swan are only talking
business!”
“You must have been a decent-looking girl in your day,” Swan went on.
“Of course, time doesn’t stand still with any of us, and very few can
weather the storm, as you may say, without showing some signs of wear and
tear.”
“I’ve had more of a struggle than most,” she said, glancing at the
mirror.
“You want somebody to take you out for walks, and now and again an
evening at the theatre. Sometimes I get pit orders for two, and I tear
’em up, because,” said Swan, with a touch of melancholy, “simply because
I can’t get no one to go with.”
“That is a shame!” she cried. “Surely your landlady—”
“You know what landladies are,” he interposed. “Always on the make. So
long as they can over-charge you, that’s all they want. I don’t mean
anything personal,” he added quickly, and rose from the easy chair.
“It’s a fine moonlight night,” he went on; “I shall just take a turn
round and get a mouthful of fresh air.”
“I haven’t been outside the front door to-day.”
“I’ll wait for you,” he whispered, “a few houses off.”
“Martha,” she cried severely, “do you see what the time is? Pack off to
bed this minute, and I’ll come up and hear you say your prayers. Bid
‘Good-night’ to Mr. Swan, and thank him prettily for what he gave you.”
“Bring a bigger bunch next time,” said the child shrilly.
Swan, walking up and down on the pavement, was hailed by one or two
colleagues on their way home, who asked to be informed whether he had
succeeded in recovering young Mannering’s box: he contented himself by
replying to the effect that negotiations were in progress, and that a
full report would be made in the morning. They predicted that he had for
once bitten off more than he could chew.
“This takes me back,” she remarked brightly, as she came up, “I shouldn’t
like to say how long. Wonder whether I can get your step?”
“You’ll get accustomed to it,” he replied. “Any objection to me
smoking?”
“I love a pipe! Oh, but,” with sudden agitation, “I didn’t say you could
take my arm! Whatever will the neighbours think?”
“They’ll think what a lucky one I am.”
“Mr. Swan, you seem to have an answer ready for everything!”
She announced half an hour later that she did not feel in the least
tired, adding a belief that she could go on walking for ever; but Swan,
who needed his supper, was firm, and at her door mentioned that he was
early duty all the current week. She offered her hand and thanked him
for his kindness; he held it and asked determinedly where and when could
he see her again. Surely, she retorted, surely once was enough! Once,
Swan announced, was by no means enough—twenty thousand times would not,
in his opinion, be reckoned sufficient.
“You must think I’m simple to believe that!” she said.
“What about to-morrow?” he asked, ignoring the assertion.
“Would you care to come in the evening and have something to eat before
the child goes to bed?”
Porter Swan, in a moment of inspiration, kissed her hand, thus striking
the exactly right note, and she declared she seemed to have known him for
years. Would Mr. Swan do her one favour?
“Command me!” he begged.
Would he mind taking that lad’s box away with him, and leaving it at the
station or somewhere? The sight of it on the morrow would recall bitter
words that she wished to drive from her memory.
“I don’t mind obliging you,” said Swan, feigning reluctance, “to that
extent.”
It had cost a deal of thought and of trouble, but good repayment came the
next morning. He conducted Mannering to the Up Parcels Office, and there
formally presented him with the tin box, sent free from the suburban
station as “Luggage Left Behind.” The staff of the Up Parcels Office
cheered Swan, and, clustering around, begged to be informed how the feat
had been accomplished, and had to interpret a wink given as reply.
Porter Swan waved aside the lad’s thanks, declined the grateful offer of
refreshments, and walked out with the air of a successful diplomatist
leaving the Guildhall after receiving in a gold casket the freedom of the
City. During the day he found a new regard paid to him; colleagues came
for private conference on knotty points of law, ranging from difficulties
with a neighbour concerning cats to the regaining of engagement rings
held by lady bailees. It was all very pleasant and gratifying, and, in
order to enjoy it to the full, he gave less than his usual energy to the
collection of tips, actually leaving one leisurely passenger without
allowing her time to find her purse.
Not until a client, searching for sound legal advice, and finding it
impossible to state his case amidst the puffing and whistling of engines,
inquired: “What are you doing with yourself this evening, old man?”—not
until then did he recall the circumstance that he had promised to eat a
meal on the occasion of his ensuing visit. He wanted to see her
again—just once more, at any rate—and he knew domestic authorities were
not too well pleased when disappointed in regard to a guest. To arrive
after the supper hour would mar the warmth and geniality of his
reception.
“Mannering!”
“Yes, Mr. Swan. Anything I can do for you?”
“Want a little more information out of you, my lad. You gave me a vague
sort of description of the food that was given you at that last place;
just let me have a few more details—the exact truth about, say, the last
meal you had there.”
As the lad complied Swan’s forehead took an extra crease; young Mannering
spoke with the fluency of one dealing with a subject on which he felt
deeply.
“Steady on!” protested Swan. “It couldn’t possibly have been so awful as
all that.”
“It was worse!” declared the other. “A jolly sight worse! At first it
seemed all right; but the third day— You ought to have been there! If
you ’appen to have a taste for tough meat—they say there’s nothing like
leather; but that’s a mistake—overdone and all black at the edges, why,
you would have enjoyed yourself!”
“She doesn’t look like a woman who can’t cook.”
“She’s a very nice person,” agreed the lad judicially, “and I’ve got no
other fault to find whatsoever. Horrible particular, though, about late
hours. Old-fashioned and out of date, I call her.”
“What do you mean,” roared Swan impetuously, “by talking in that way
about a lady? Keep a civil tongue in your head, will you? Who are you,
I should like to know, to find fault?”
The lad begged for pardon.
“What do you know about food?” he raved on. “Accustomed to nothing but
raw turnips hitherto, how can you possibly tell whether cooking is good
or not? Be off and see about your work, or else I’ll get you shifted
back to that toad-in-the-hole station in the country. Coming up here,”
continued Swan aggrievedly, “and dictating to Londoners about food—I
never heard of such impudence!”
He strode to the porters’ room’, and, flinging off his jacket, sat at the
desk and took a penholder, assuming the attitude of mental stress common
to those who start upon literary efforts. Like many others in similar
position, he found himself baulked at the very start. Should he, in
writing to excuse himself from paying his call until after the hour of
supper, begin, “My dear Madam” or “Dear Friend,” or, his memory going
back to the days of youth, dare to write “Sweetest”? He tried all of
these, and others, and could not persuade himself to feel satisfied with
any. The old remedy of shining boots gave him an idea that brought back
contentment to his features, and he went about his tasks for the
remainder of the day humming cheerfully. At six o’clock he ran around to
the eating-house near to the station and ordered a special eightpenny
steak, with chipped potatoes.
“That’ll save me!” remarked Porter Swan.
In marching down towards Railway Terrace he could not help thinking of
his soldier days when there was never a dearth of housemaids, and never a
one who did not, sooner or later, betray some defect which led to
cessation of amiabilities. Here, again, was a case of a trim little
woman who, if she but knew how to cook, might well be either highly
commended or, perhaps, awarded the prize of second marriage. He had
enjoyed his meal at the eating-house, and felt willing to look on the
world with an indulgent air; nevertheless, he could not help seeing the
drawback was serious.
“Hullo, my dear!” as the child opened the door. “How are we this time?”
“Brought me anythink?”
“What do you say to a few chocolates?”
“Mr. Swan,” called a pleasant voice from the kitchen, “don’t you go
spoiling her. She’s not been behaving nicely.”
“Hand ’em over!” ordered the youngster.
The mother came through the passage, slightly flushed by the fire or from
confusion, reproved her daughter for want of manners, gave a welcome to
Mr. Swan, and expressed a hope that he had a good appetite.
“Don’t know what’s the matter with me,” he replied anxiously. “If I
don’t get better I shall have to see a chemist. I could no more touch
food at the present moment than I could swim the Channel. I’m very
sorry, but you must excuse me, reelly.”
“It’s a pity,” she said with distress. “You don’t mind sitting down and
watching us eat, I hope.”
“That’ll suit me,” declared Swan, entering the room.
The table was neatly set out for three, with glasses, shining knives and
forks, an attractive roll of bread at each plate. She went to the
kitchen.
“We’ve got a fowel,” whispered the child importantly. “Roast fowel!”
“You’re welcome to my share,” he answered.
This, repeated with some extravagance, caused the child’s mother to stop
as she came in with the dish. She said “Oh!” in such a pained way that
he hastened to assure her no reflection upon her culinary skill was
intended; the internal complaint from which he was suffering had to take
the responsibility. The child said grace.
“You’re a first-rate carver,” he said interestedly.
“It’s a tender bird,” she remarked.
“Looks to me as though it’s beautifully done,” declared the astonished
Swan, his mouth watering.
“I was cook in a good family before I married my first,” she explained.
“If you’ve once learnt, you never forget. When I get a lodger who keeps
good hours I take a pride in preparing his meals. When he doesn’t, I
know enough about cooking to cook so that he doesn’t want to stop.”
* * * * *
The staff subscribed threepences, and bought a fish knife and fork.
Porter Swan sent in an application for leave, and for passes—passes for
two: self and wife.