DISMISSAL
Alban had been a disappointment to his employers, the great engineer of
the Isle of Dogs, to whom Charity had apprenticed him in his fourteenth
year. Faithful attempts to improve his position in the works were met,
as it would seem, by indifference and ingratitude. He did his work
mechanically but without enthusiasm. Had he confessed the truth, he
would have said, "I was not born to labor with my hands." A sense of
inherited superiority, a sure conviction, common to youth, that he would
become a leader, of men, conduced to a restlessness and a want of
interest which he could not master. He had the desire but not the will
to please his employers.
To such a lad these excursions to the West End, these pilgrimages to the
shrine of the outcast and the homeless were by way of being a mental
debauch. He arose from them in the morning as a man may arise to the
remembrance of unjustified excess, which leaves the mind inert and the
body weary. His daily task presented itself in a revolting attitude. Why
had he been destined to this slavery? Why must he set out to his work at
an hour of the chilly morning when the West End was still shuttered and
asleep and the very footmen still yawned in their beds? If he had any
consolation, it was that the others were often before him in that
cunning debauch from the caves which the dawn compelled. The Lady Sarah
would be at Covent Garden by four o'clock. The Archbishop, who rarely
seemed to sleep at all, went off to the Serpentine for his morning
ablutions when the clock struck five. "Betty," the pale-faced infant,
disappeared as soon as the sun was up--and often, when Alban awoke in
the cellar, he found himself the only tenant of that grim abode.
Sometimes, indeed, and this morning following upon the promise to little
Lois Boriskoff was such an occasion, he overslept himself altogether and
was shut out from the works for the day. This had happened before and
had brought frequent reprimands. He feared them and yet had not the will
to remember them.
Big Ben was striking seven when he quitted the cellar and London was
awake in earnest. Alban usually spent twopence in the luxury of a "wash
and brush up" before he went down to the river; but he hastened on this
morning conscious of his tardiness and troubled at the possible
consequences. The bright spring day did little to reassure him. Weather
does not mean very much to those who labor in heated atmospheres, who
have no profit of the sunshine nor gift of the seasons. Alban thought
rather of the fateful clock and of the excuses which might pacify the
timekeeper. He had never stooped to the common lies; he would not stoop
to them this day. When, at the gate of the works, a heavy jowled man
with a red beard asked him what he meant by coming there at such an
hour, he answered as frankly that he did not know.
"Been out to supper with the Earl of Barkin, perhaps," the burly man
suggested. "Well, young fellow, you go up and see Mr. Tucker. He's
particularly desirous of making your acquaintance--that he is. Tell him
how his lordship's doin' and don't you forget the ladies."
Alban made no reply, but crossing the open yard he mounted a little
flight of stairs and knocked indifferently at the door of the dreaded
office thus indicated. An angry voice, bidding him "come in," did not
reassure him. He found the deputy manager frank but determined. There
could be no doubt whatever of the issue.
"Kennedy," he said quietly, "I hope you understand why I have sent for
you."
"For being late, sir. I am very sorry--I overslept myself."
"My boy, if your work was as honest as your tongue, your fortune would
be made. I am afraid I must remember what passed at our last meeting.
You promised me then--"
"I am quite aware of it, sir. The real truth is that I can't get up. The
work here is distasteful to me--but I do my best."
The manager shook his head in a deprecating manner.
"We have given you many chances, Kennedy," he rejoined. "If it rested
with me, I would give you another. But it doesn't rest with me--it rests
with that necessary person. Example. What would the men say if I treated
you as a privileged person? You know that the work could not go on. For
the present, at any rate, you are suspended. I must see my directors
and take instructions from them. Now, really, Kennedy, don't you think
that you have been very foolish?"
"I suppose so, sir. That's what foolish people generally think. It must
make a lot of difference to you whether a man comes at six or seven,
even if he does a good deal more work than the early ones. I could do
what you ask me to do in three hours a day. That's what puzzles me."
The amiable Mr. Tucker was up in arms in a moment.
"Now, come, I cannot discuss abstract propositions with you. Our hours
are from six to six. You do not choose to keep them and, therefore, you
must go. When you are a little more practically inclined, I will speak
to the directors for you. You may come and tell me so when that is the
case."
"I shall never come and tell you so, sir. I wish that I could--but it
will never be the truth. The work that I could do for you is now what
you want me to do. I am sure it is better for me to go, sir."
"Then you have something in your mind, Kennedy?"
"So many things, sir, that I could fill a book with them. That is why I
am foolish. Good-by, Mr. Tucker. I suppose you have all been very kind
to me--I don't rightly understand, but I think that you have. So good-by
and thank you."
The discreet manager took the outstretched hand and shook it quite
limply. There had been a momentary contraction of the brows while he
asked himself if astute rivals might not have been tampering with this
young fellow and trying to buy the firm's secrets. An instant's
reflection, however, reassured him. Alban had no secrets worth the name
to sell, and did he possess them, money would not buy them. "Half mad
but entirely honest," was Mr. Tucker's comment, "he will either make a
fortune or throw himself over London Bridge."
Alban had been quite truthful when he said that he had many things in
his mind, but this confession did not mean to signify a possibility of
new employment. In honest truth, he had hardly left the gates of the
great yard when he realized how hopeless his position was. Of last
week's wages but a few shillings remained in his pocket. He knew no one
to whom he might offer such services as he had to give. The works had
taught him the elements of mechanical engineering, and common sense told
him that skilled labor rarely went begging if the laborer were worthy
his hire. None the less, the prospect of touting for such employment
affrighted him beyond words. He felt that he could not again abase
himself for a few paltry shillings a week. The ambition to make of this
misfortune a stepping-stone to better things rested on no greater
security than his pride and yet it would not be wholly conquered. He
spent a long morning by the riverside planning schemes so futile that
even the boy's mind rejected them. The old copybook maxims recurred to
him and were treated with derision. He knew that he would never become
Lord Mayor of London--after a prosperous career in a dingy office which
he had formerly swept out with a housemaid's broom.
The lower reaches of the Thames are a world of themselves; peopled by a
nation of aliens; endless in the variety of their life; abounding in
weird and beautiful pictures which even the landsman can appreciate.
Alban rarely tired of that panorama of swirling waters and drifting
hulks and the majestic shapes of resting ships. And upon such a day as
this which had made an idler of him, their interest increased tenfold;
and to this there was added a wonder which had never come into his life
before. For surely, he argued, this great river was the high road to an
El Dorado of which he had often dreamed; to that shadowy land of valley
and of mountain which his imagination so ardently desired. Let a man
find employment upon the deck of one of those splendid ships and
henceforth the whole world would be open to him. Alban debated this as a
possible career, and as he thought of it the spell of the craving for
new sights and scenes afar mastered him to the exclusion of all other
thoughts. Who was to forbid him; who had the right to stand between him
and his world hunger so irresistibly? When a voice within whispered a
girl's name in his ear, he could have laughed aloud for very derision. A
fine thing that he should talk of the love of woman or let his plans be
influenced for the sake of a pretty face! Why, he would be a beggar
himself in a week, it might be without a single copper in his pocket or
a roof to shelter him! And he was just the sort of man to live on a
woman's earnings--just the one to cast the glove to fortune and of his
desperation achieve the final madness. No, no, he must leave London. The
city had done with him--he had never been so sure of anything in all
his life.
It was an heroic resolution, and shame that hunger should so maltreat
it. When twelve o'clock struck and Alban remembered how poor a breakfast
he had made, he did not think it necessary to abandon any of his old
habits, at least not immediately; and he went, as he usually had done,
to the shabby dining-room in Union Street where he and Lois had taken
their dinners together for many a month past. Boriskoff's daughter was
already at table and waiting for him when he entered; he thought that
she was unusually pale and that her expectancy was not that of a common
occasion. Was it possible that she also had news to tell him--news as
momentous as his own? Alban feared to ask her, and hanging his cap on a
peg above their table without a word, he sat down and began to study the
greasy menu.
"What's the luck, Alb, dear--why do you look like that?"
Little Lois asked the question, struck by his odd manner and appearance.
He answered her with surprising candor--for the sudden determination
came to him that he must tell Lois.
"No luck at all, Lois."
"Why, you don't mean--?"
"I do, and that's straight. There is no further need of my services--"
"You've got the sack?"
"The whole of it, Lois--and now I'm selling it cheap."
The girl laughed aloud, but there were tears in her eyes while she did
so. What a day for them both. She was angry almost with him for telling
her.
"Why, if father ain't a-gettin' on the prophet line--he said you would,
Alb. So help me rummy, I was that angry with him I couldn't hear myself
speak. And now it's all come true. Why, Alb, dear--and I wanted to tell
you--"
She could not finish the sentence for a sob that almost choked her. The
regular customers of the room had turned to stare at the sound of such
unwonted hilarity. Dinner was far too serious a business for most of
them that laughter should serve it.
"What was your father saying, Lois?"
"That you were going away, dear, and that the sooner I gave up thinking
about you the fatter I should be."
"How did he know what was going to happen?"
"Ask me another and don't pay the bill. He's been as queer as white
rabbits since yesterday--didn't go to work this morning, but sat all day
over a letter he's received. I shall be frightened of father just now. I
do really believe he's getting a bit balmy on the crumpet."
"Still talking about the man who stole the furnace?"
"Why, there you've got it. We're going to Buckingham Palace in a donkey
cart and pretty quick about it. You'll be ashamed of such fine people,
Alb--father says so. So I'm not to speak to you to begin with--not till
the dresses come home from Covent Garden and the horses are pawing the
ground for her lidyship. That's the chorus all day--lots of fun when the
bricks come home and father with a watch-chain as big as Moses. He knew
you were going to get the sack and he warned me against it. 'We can't
afford to associate with those people nowadays'--don't yer know--'so
mind what you're a-doing, my child.' And I'm minding it all day--I was
just minding it when you came in, Alb. Don't you see her lidyship is
taking mutton chops? Couldn't descend to nothink less, my dear--not on
such a day as this--blimme."
Lois' patter, acquired in the streets, invariably approached the purely
vulgar when she was either angry or annoyed--for at other times her
nationality saved her from many of its penalties. Alban quite understood
that something beyond ordinary must have passed between father and
daughter to-day; but this was neither the time nor the place to discuss
it.
"We'll meet outside the Pav to-night and have a good talk, Lois," he
said; "everybody's listening here. Be there at nine sharp. Who knows, it
may be the last time we shall ever meet in London--"
"You're not going away, Alb?"
A look of terror had come into the pretty eyes; the frail figure of the
girl trembled as she asked the question.
"Can't say, Lois--how do I know? Suppose I went as a sailor--"
Lois laughed louder than before.
"You--a blueboy! Lord, how you make me laugh. Fancy the aristocrat being
ordered about. Oh, my poor funny-bone! Wouldn't you knock the man down
that did it--oh, can't I see him."
The idea amused her immensely and she dwelt upon it even in the street
outside. Her Alb as Captain Jack--or should it be the cabin-boy. And, of
course, he would bring her a parrot from the Brazils and perhaps a
monkey.
"An' I'll keep a light in the winder for fear you should be shipwrecked
in High Street, Alb, and won't we go hornpiping together. Oh, you silly
boy; oh, you dear old Captain Jack--whatever put a sailorman into your
mind?"
"The water," said Alban, as stolidly--"it leads to somewhere, Lois. This
is the road to nowhere--good God, how tired I am of it."
"And of those who go with you, Alb."
"I am ashamed of myself because of them, Lois."
"You silly boy, Alb--are they ashamed, Alb? Oh, no, no--people who love
are never ashamed."
He did not contest the point with her, nor might she linger. Bells were
ringing everywhere, syrens were calling the people to work. It was a new
thing for Alban Kennedy to be strolling the streets with his hands in
his pockets when the clock struck one. And yet there he was become a
loafer in an instant, just one of the many thousand who stare up idly at
the sky or gaze upon the windows of the shops they may not patronize, or
drift on helpless as though a dark stream of life had caught them and
nevermore would set them on dry land again. Alban realized all this, and
yet the full measure of his disaster was not wholly understood. It was
so recent, the consequences yet unfelt, the future, after all, pregnant
with the possibilities of change. He knew not at all what he should do,
and yet determined that the shame of which he had spoken should never
overtake him.
And so determining, he strolled as far as Aldgate Station--and there he
met the stranger.