MR. HOBBS
§ 1
A WEDNESDAY morning in June. Catherine had been in the song department
for just over a month. Her work was easy and not too monotonous. It
consisted in selling ballad songs, and trying them over to customers on
the piano. Every day new music came from the publishers, and she had to
familiarize herself with it. She was very successful at this kind of
work, and was altogether happy in her position.
The stores opened at nine, but business was always slack until
half-past ten or thereabouts. Mr. Hobbs, everlastingly attired in a
morning coat and butterfly collar, with his hair beautifully oiled and
his moustache beautifully curled, and his lips beautifully carven into
an attitude of aristocratic politeness, arrived always on the stroke of
nine. His first duty was to open the packages from the publishers, but
before doing this he would wash his hands carefully lest the journey
from South Bockley should have contaminated them. Should also the
alignment of his hair-parting have been disturbed in transit he would
remedy the defect with scrupulous exactitude. Then, and only then,
would he exhibit himself for the delectation of the general public....
On this particular morning Mr. Hobbs did not arrive upon the stroke of
nine. Such an event had never been known to happen before. Catherine
and Amelia and the other girls of the music department were thrilled
with the romance of Mr. Hobbs’ non-arrival. In soft whispers they
discussed what might possibly have happened to him. The previous
evening he had left upon the stroke of six, seemingly in a state of
complete normality, physical and mental. Had some dire fate overwhelmed
him? Or--prosaic thought--had he overslept himself? ...
And then at a quarter past ten Mr. Hobbs entered the portals of the
music department. His morning coat was marked by a chalky smudge,
his tie was unsymmetrical, his moustache uncurled and his top hat
considerably and conspicuously battered.
Was he drunk? The girls waited breathless for an explanation.
“There was an accident to the 8.42 at Liverpool Street,” he announced
calmly. “It ran into the end of the platform.”
“Were you hurt?” Amelia asked him.
“I received no personal hurts,” he replied, “but my hat, as you see, is
badly damaged.” And he pointed solemnly to the hat he held in his hand.
“Well, it’s quarter past ten now,” said one of the girls. “What did you
do all that time?”
“I just went round to the company offices to lodge a complaint,” he
answered quietly.
“What for?” said Catherine. “You weren’t hurt.”
“But my hat was,” he replied. “And I can’t afford to buy a new hat
every time the company runs their train into the end of the platform.”
Catherine was amazed at the man’s utter coolness.
“Well,” she said laughingly, “I’m sure if I’d been in a railway
accident I should have been so glad to get out without hurting myself
that I should never have thought about complaining for a hat.”
He smiled--a touch of male superiority made itself apparent in his
eyes. Then he delivered judgment.
“One should always,” he said massively, “know what one should do in any
contingency, however unforeseen. And everyone should be acquainted with
the first principles of English law ... there’s those parcels down from
Augeners’, Miss Weston....”
§ 2
All the rest of the day he was serene in his little groove.
At lunch-time he went out to buy a new top hat.
But the next day he unbent a little. About closing time he approached
Catherine and placed a little green book on the counter before her.
It was one of those sixpenny volumes called the “People’s Books.” Its
title was _Everyday Law_, by J. J. Adams.
“Perhaps this would interest you,” he said. “It is very short and
simple to understand, and it tells you a good many things that every
modern man and woman should know.”
“Thank you,” she stammered, slightly overwhelmed.
“I have underlined the pages relating to railway accidents,” he went on.
And she thought: “He has actually spent sixpence on me!”
But he continued: “You need not be in a hurry to return it to me.... In
fact”--in a burst of generosity--“keep it until you are quite sure you
have finished with it.”
“Thank you,” she said again, and was surprised to feel herself blushing
scarlet....
§ 3
Catherine bought her daily paper in the evening and read it in the
train while Amelia occupied herself with a novel. That evening she read
the account of the railway accident that had taken place at Liverpool
Street Station the day before. Several persons were taken to hospital
“suffering from cuts and contusions,” but “were allowed to return home
later in the day.” And amongst those who “complained of shock” she read
the name:
Mr. James Hobbs ... 272A, Myrtle Road, South Bockley.
Incidentally that told her where he lived....
§ 4
The summer sun shone down upon the scorched London streets, and the
lives of those who worked in the music department of Ryder and Sons
were monotonously uneventful. Every morning Catherine and Amelia caught
the 8.12 from Bockley and arrived in Liverpool Street at 8.37. Every
morning Mr. Hobbs said “Good morning,” with exquisite politeness, to
all the female assistants. Every lunch-time Mr. Hobbs went to the same
A.B.C. tea-shop, sat at the same marble-topped table, was served by the
same waitress, to whom he addressed the mystic formula “usual please,”
which resulted in the appearance some minutes later of a glass of hot
milk and a roll and butter. During the meal he scanned the headlines
of the morning paper, but after the last mouthful had been carefully
masticated he gave himself up to a fierce scrutiny of the stock
markets. Was his ambition to be a financier? ...
If Amelia was sullen on a Sunday afternoon, there were occasions when
she was sullen on week-days also. A sulky discontent was ingrained in
her nature, and Catherine was often treated to exhibitions of it. Then
suddenly Catherine discovered the reason. Amelia was jealous of her.
Amelia regarded her own relationship with Mr. Hobbs as promising enough
to merit high hopes: these high hopes had been blurred, it seemed, by
the swift dazzlement of Catherine.
Catherine was amused. Chronically jealous as she herself had been in
her time, she had no sympathy whatever with others afflicted with the
same disease. And Amelia’s jealousy seemed absurd and incredible.
Catherine was beginning to take a malicious dislike to Amelia. Mr.
Hobbs was so scrupulously correct in his treatment of them both that
Amelia’s jealousy became ludicrously trivial. In her youthful days
Catherine would have tried to flirt extravagantly with him for the mere
pleasure of torturing Amelia, but now her malice had become a thing of
quieter if of deadlier potency. She would wait. She did not like him at
all, but she did not blame him in the least for preferring herself to
Amelia. It was inconceivable that any man should desire Amelia. She
would wait: she would be as friendly with Mr. Hobbs as she chose (which
did not imply a very deep intimacy), and Amelia and her jealousy, if
she still persisted in it, could go to the devil.
Even to Mr. Hobbs her attitude was curiously compounded of pity
and condescension. As much as to say: I don’t enjoy your company
particularly, but I am taking pity on you: I know how awful it must be
for a man to have anything to do with that horrid Miss Lazenby. But
don’t presume upon my kindness.
He did indeed begin to talk to her rather more than the strict business
of the shop required. And in doing so he displayed the poverty of his
intellect. He had a mind well stocked with facts--a sort of abridged
encyclopædia--and that was all.
He brought her a piece of newly published music to try over. She played
it through and remarked that it was very pretty, not because she
thought it was, but because the habit of saying things like that had
grown upon her.
“Very pretty,” he agreed. “There’s a--a something--in it--a peculiar
sort of melody--oriental, you know, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “There is, quite.”
“It’s strange,” he went on, “how some pieces of music are quite
different from others. And yet the same. You know what I mean. When
you’ve heard them you say, ‘I’ve heard that before!’ And yet you
haven’t. I suppose it must be something in them.”
“I suppose so.”
“It’s in a minor, isn’t it?--Ah, there’s something in minors.
Something. I don’t know quite how to describe it. A sort of
mournfulness, you know. I like minors, don’t you?”
“Very much.”
They talked thus for several minutes, and then he asked her to come out
with him the following Saturday afternoon. Chiefly out of curiosity she
accepted....
§ 5
“That’s just where you’re wrong, Amy,” she replied, as they walked
along the High Road from Bockley Station, “I don’t like him a bit. I
think he’s one of the dullest and most empty-headed men I’ve ever met.
So there!”
“You thought he was clever enough after that train accident when he
went to claim damages, anyway.”
“Oh, that?--That’s only a sort of cheap smartness. A kind of
pounciness. Like a pawnbroker’s assistant. I tell you he’s got no real
brains worth calling any.”
“Then if you don’t like him why are you going out with him on Saturday?”
“’Cos I am. Why shouldn’t I? It’ll be your turn maybe the week after.
Hasn’t the poor man a right to ask out any girl besides you?”
“I believe you _do_ like him....”
“What?--Like _him_?--_Him_?--If I couldn’t find a better man
than that I’d go without all my life, I would. Take him, my dear Amy,
take him and God bless both of you! Don’t think _I_ shall mind!”
“Oh, you needn’t talk like that. And you needn’t despise them that
hasn’t got brains. I suppose you wanter marry a genius, eh?”
Catherine laughed.
“Not particularly,” she replied carefully, as if she were pondering
over the subject, “but I know this much: I wouldn’t marry a man unless
he’d got brains.”
“Ho--wouldn’t you?”
“No, I wouldn’t....”
§ 6
They spent Saturday afternoon at the Zoo.
“A very interesting place,” he said, as they were strolling through
Regent’s Park, with a July sun blazing down upon them. “And
instructive,” he added complimentarily.
The snake-house was very hot, and in front of a languid Indian python
he remarked: “Poor things--to be stuffed up like that in a glass
case....” He seemed to be searching for a humane plane on which to
steer their conversation.
And in the lion house, as they stopped in front of a huge lioness, he
remarked facetiously: “How should you like to be shut up alone with
that creature, eh?”
“Not at all,” she replied, with absurd seriousness.
They had tea in the open air near the elephant’s parade-ground. During
the meal he said slowly and thrillingly: “I had a stroke of luck
yesterday.”
Politeness required her to be interested and reply: “Oh, did you? What
was it?”
He coughed before answering. He made a little bending gesture with his
head, as if to indicate that he was about to take her somewhat into his
confidence.
“Last year,” he began, “I bought a certain number of shares for five
hundred pounds. The day before yesterday these shares were worth
five hundred and ninety-five pounds. Yesterday their value increased
to six hundred and forty pounds. To-day they may be worth a still
higher figure.... So, you see, yesterday I earned, in a kind of
way, forty-five pounds. And without any effort on my part, besides.
Forty-five pounds in one day isn’t bad, is it?”
“Quite good,” she murmured vaguely. She wondered if she would startle
him by saying that she had earned much more than forty-five pounds in a
couple of hours. She decided not to try.
“Curious how money makes money, isn’t it?” he went on. “Wonderful
thing--modern finance.... Of course I am saving up. After all, a man
wants a home some day, doesn’t he? As soon as I come across the right
girl I shall get married....”
He paused for effect.
“If she’ll let you,” put in Catherine, from no apparent motive.
He appeared ruffled.
“Oh, of course,” he said, “if she’ll let me. Of course. How could I
otherwise? ... Look at that elephant: those boys have given him a bath
bun.”
He seemed to think he had been sufficiently confidential.
“It’s nice to feel you’ve got a bit of capital behind you,” he said
smugly, and Catherine replied: “Yes, very nice.”
Then he developed a spurious boisterousness.
After tea they walked round all the open-air portions of the
establishment. One of the elephants picked up coins off the ground and
put them in his keeper’s pocket. Mr. Hobbs threw down a penny.
“Clever animal,” he remarked, after the trick had been successfully
performed, “but I expect the man keeps the money.”
“I daresay he does,” said Catherine.
Outside the monkey enclosure he said: “I suppose we were all like this
at one time.... Swinging from trees by our tails. That’s what Darwin
said, didn’t he?”
Afterwards, in Regent’s Park, he became himself again. At Portland Road
Underground Station he bought an evening paper and consulted its inside
page minutely.
“My shares,” he announced, _sotto voce_, as they sat together in
the train, “are now worth six hundred and sixty pounds. Another rise,
you see.... Nothing like money for making money, is there?”
“No,” she replied distantly....
When Catherine got back to Cubitt Lane, Amelia said:
“Well--had a good time?”
There was something so spiteful in Amelia’s tone that Catherine felt
compelled to say: “Oh yes, rather! Had a lovely time! And Mr. Hobbs was
awf’ly nice!”
§ 7
She was in a groove now. The rebuilding of her soul no longer
troubled her. She was content to be as she was. Her egoism, her
insane self-conceit fell from the lofty plane which had been their
sole excuse, and worked in narrower and more selfish channels. In
Cubitt Lane she was considered proud and “stuck-up.” She did not
associate with the “young fellers up the road,” nor did she frequent
the saloon-bar of the King’s Head. In all things she was quiet, aloof
and unimpeachably respectable. She was always dressed neatly and well,
and she did not possess any dress which, by its showiness and general
lack of utility, bore the label “Sundays only.” Now that she was in
a district where fine talk was unusual, she began to be vain of her
language and accent. To Amelia she was always scornful and consciously
aloof: even to Mr. Hobbs she was not loth to betray an attitude of
innate superiority. And Mr. Hobbs did not mind it. The more arrogant
her mien, the more scornful her tone, the more he singled her out for
his preferences and favours.
The Duke Street Methodist Chapel, despite its frowsy surroundings, had
always been famous as the last refuge of unimpeachable respectability.
Its external architecture was as the respectability of its patrons,
severe and uncompromising. And the Reverend Samuel Swallow, excellent
man though he was, did not fulfil the ideal of a spiritual guide. His
sermons were upright, and as often happens, stiff-necked as well. There
was too much noise and bombast about him. Too much chumminess in his
dealings with the Almighty. Catherine went to one Sunday evening’s
service, and those were her mental criticisms. She sat in one of the
front pews, and exhibited her superiority by dropping a sixpence gently
on to a pile of coppers when the plate came round. The building had
recently been re-decorated, and stank abominably of paint. In the
choir, where years ago her mother had stood and yelled, a new galaxy
of beauty sang down menacingly over the shoulders of the Rev. Samuel
Swallow.... And before the sermon the latter announced: “Whan of our
brethren has presented us with a timepiece, which, as you may perhaps
have noticed, is now fixed immediately beneath the rails of the
gallery.” (General craning of necks and shuffling of collars to look at
it.) ... “I trust--indeed, I am sure--that none of you will show your
impatience towards the conclusion of my sermon by looking round too
frequently at this recent addition to the amenities of our church....”
A soft rustling titter, instinct with unimpeachable respectability....
Catherine decided that she could not join a “place” like that. She
had decided to join a “place” of some sort, because joining a “place”
was an indispensable item of respectability. But she wanted her
respectability to be superior to other people’s respectability,
superior to Amelia’s, superior to Mrs. Lazenby’s, superior to the Rev.
Samuel Swallow’s. Her conceit now wanted to make her more respectable
than any other person she knew.
She asked Mr. Hobbs if he belonged to a church.
He replied: “I am afraid, my time and avocations do not permit me to
attend regularly at any place of worship.... But I often go to the City
Temple.... I consider religion an excellent thing....”
She determined to be more respectable than Mr. Hobbs.
“Of course,” she said freezingly, “I am Church of England....”
§ 8
The Bockley Parish Church was large, ancient and possessed an expensive
clientele. Into this clientele Catherine entered. Her entrance was not
at first noticed. She rented a seat, carried her hymn and prayer-books
piously to and from the service, and purchased a second-hand hassock
at a valuation off the previous occupant. The Rev. Archibald Pettigrew
shook hands with her occasionally, and raised his hat if he passed her
in the street. At a church concert she volunteered as accompanist for
some songs, but her professional efficiency did not attract attention.
One of the curates, fresh from Cambridge, saw her and took notice.
He was very youthful and very enthusiastic; secretly ritualist, he
dabbled in music, and indulged in unseemly bickerings with the organist
and choirmaster. He wanted the choir to sing like the choir at King’s
College, Cambridge. He would have liked to deliver a Latin grace at the
annual boys’ outing to Hainault Forest. In most of these things the
Rev. Archibald Pettigrew exerted a restraining influence upon him. But
in Catherine the young enthusiast thought he saw a kindred spirit. This
young woman, so quiet, so demure, so earnest and pious in her religious
observances, was she not destined to be his helper and confidante?
He lent her tracts and showed her some candlesticks he had purchased
in Paternoster Row. And frequently he came to Cubitt Lane and produced
an overwhelming impression on Mrs. Lazenby by giving her a visiting
card inscribed with:
The Rev. Elkin Broodbank, St. Luke’s Vicarage, Bockley.
And Catherine was unspeakably charmed and flattered by his attentions.
But she was not impressed by his personality. He had none....