It was the morning of Boxing Day, frosty, with a sky of steel grey; the
streets were resonant under the traffic.
Richard had long been anticipating the advent of the New Year, when
new resolutions were to come into force. A phrase from a sermon heard
at Bursley stuck in his memory: _Every day begins a new year_. But he
could not summon the swift, courageous decision necessary to act upon
that adage. For a whole year he had been slowly subsiding into a bog
of lethargy, and to extricate himself would, he felt, need an amount
of exertion which he could not put forth unless fortified by all the
associations of the season for such feats, and by the knowledge that
fellow-creatures were bracing themselves for a similar difficult wrench.
Now that he looked back upon them, the fourteen months which had
elapsed since Adeline's departure seemed to have succeeded one another
with marvellous rapidity. At first he had chafed under the loss of her,
and then gradually and naturally he had grown used to her absence. She
wrote to him, a rather long letter, full of details about the voyage
and the train journey and her uncles' home; he had opened the envelope
half expecting that the letter might affect him deeply; but it did not;
it struck him as a distinctly mediocre communication. He sent a reply,
and the correspondence ended. He did not love her, probably never had
loved her. A little sentiment: that was all. The affair was quite over.
If it had been perhaps unsatisfactory, the fault was not his. A man,
he reflected, cannot by taking thought fall in love (and yet this was
exactly what he had attempted to do!), and that in any case Adeline
would not have suited him. Still, at moments when he recalled her face
and gestures, her exquisite feminality, and especially her fine candour
at their parting, he grew melancholy and luxuriously pitied himself.
At the commencement of the year which was now drawing to a close he
had attacked the art of literature anew, and had compassed several
articles; but as one by one they suffered rejection, his energy had
dwindled, and in a short time he had again entirely ceased to write.
Nor did he pursue any ordered course of study. He began upon a number
of English classics, finishing few of them, and continued to consume
French novels with eagerness. Sometimes the French work, by its neat,
severe effectiveness, would stir in him a vague desire to do likewise,
but no serious sustained effort was made.
In the spring, when loneliness is peculiarly wearisome, he had joined
a literary and scientific institution, for young men only, upon whose
premises it was forbidden either to drink intoxicants or to smoke
tobacco. He paid a year's subscription, and in less than a fortnight
loathed not only the institution but every separate member and official
of it. Then he thought of transplanting himself to the suburbs, but
the trouble of moving the library of books which by this time he
had accumulated deterred him, as well as a lazy aversion for the
discomforts which a change would certainly involve.
And so he had sunk into a sort of coma. His chief task was to kill
time. Eight hours were due to the office and eight to sleep, and eight
others remained to be disposed of daily. In the morning he rose late,
retarding his breakfast hour, diligently read the newspaper, and
took the Park on the way to business. In the evening, as six o'clock
approached, he no longer hurried his work in order to be ready to
leave the office immediately the clock struck. On the contrary, he
often stayed after hours when there was no necessity to stay, either
leisurely examining his accounts, or gossiping with Jenkins or one of
the older clerks. He watched the firm's welfare with a jealous eye,
offered suggestions to Mr. Curpet which not seldom were accepted, and
grew to be regarded as exceptionally capable and trustworthy. He could
divine now and then in the tone or the look of the principals (who were
niggardly with praise) an implicit trust, mingled--at any rate, in
the case of the senior partner--with a certain respect. He grew more
sedate in manner, and to the office boys, over whom he had charge,
he was even forbidding; they disliked him, finding him a martinet
more strict and less suave than Mr. Curpet himself. He kept them
late at night sometimes without quite sufficient cause, and if they
showed dissatisfaction, told them sententiously that boys who were so
desperately anxious to do as little as they could would never get on in
the world.
Upon leaving the office he would stroll slowly through Booksellers' Row
and up the Strand, with the gait of a man whose time is entirely his
own. Once or twice a week he dined at one of the foreign restaurants in
Soho, prolonging the meal to an unconscionable length, and repairing
afterwards to some lounge for a cigar and a liqueur. He paid particular
attention to his dress, enjoying the sensation of wearing good clothes,
and fell into a habit of comparing his personal appearance with that of
the men whom he rubbed shoulders with in fashionable cafés and bars.
His salary sufficed for these petty extravagances, since he was still
living inexpensively in one room at Raphael Street; but besides what
he earned, his resources included the sum received from the estate of
William Vernon. Seventy pounds of this had melted in festivities with
Adeline, two hundred pounds was lent upon mortgage under Mr. Curpet's
guidance, and the other fifty was kept in hand, being broken into as
infrequent occasion demanded. The mortgage investment did much to
heighten his status not only with the staff but with his principals.
Seated in a wine-room or lager-beer hall, meditatively sipping from
glass or tankard, and savouring a fragrant cigar, he contrived to
extract a certain pleasure from the contemplation of his equality with
the men around him. Many of them, he guessed with satisfaction, were in
a worse or a less secure position than his own. He studied faces and
made a practice of entering into conversation with strangers, and these
chance encounters almost invariably left him with the impression that
he had met a mental inferior. Steeping himself, as it were, in all the
frivolous, lusory activities of the West End, he began to acquire that
indefinable, unmistakable air of _savoir-faire_ characteristic of the
prosperous clerk who spends his leisure in public places. People from
the country frequently mistook him for the young man-about-town of
the society papers, familiar with every form of metropolitan chicane,
luxury, and vice.
* * * * *
After breakfast he went out into the Park with his skates. The
Serpentine had been frozen hard for more than a week, and yesterday, a
solitary unit in tens of thousands, he had celebrated Christmas on the
ice, skating from noon till nearly midnight, with brief intervals for
meals. The exercise and the fresh air had invigorated and enlivened
him, and this morning, as he plunged once more into the loose throng
of skaters, his spirits were buoyant. It had been his intention to
pass yet another day on the Serpentine; but a sudden, surprising fancy
entered his head, flitted away, and returned again and again with such
an increasing allurement that he fell in love with it: Why not commence
to write now? Why, after all, leave the new beginning till the New
Year? Was it true--what he had mournfully taken for granted for a month
past, and so lately as an hour ago--that he lacked the moral strength
to carry a good resolution into effect at any time he chose?... In a
moment, he had sworn to work four hours before he slept that night.
The decision reached, his humour became unequivocally gay. He shot
forward with longer, bolder strokes, enjoying with a keener zest the
swift motion and the strange black-and-white, sylvan-urban scene about
him. He forgot the year of idleness which lay immediately behind him,
forgot every previous failure, in the passionate exultation of his
new resolve. He whistled. He sang. He attempted impossible figures,
and only laughed when they ended in a fall. A woman, skating alone,
stumbled to her knees; he glided towards her, lifted her lightly,
raised his hat, and was gone before she could thank him: it was neatly
done; he felt proud of himself. As the clock struck twelve he took off
his skates, and walked in a quiet corner of the Park, deliberating
intently upon the plot of a story, which fortunately had been in his
mind for several months.
When he came in to dinner, he gave Lily five shillings for a Christmas
box, almost without thinking, and though he had no previous intention
of doing so; and inquired when she was to be married. He ordered tea
for four o'clock, so that the evening might be long. In the afternoon
he read and dozed. At a quarter to five the tea-things were cleared
away, the lamp was burning brightly, the blinds drawn, and his
writing-materials arranged on the table. He lit a pipe and sat down by
the fire. At last, at last, the old, long-abandoned endeavours were
about to be resumed!
The story which he was going to write was called "Tiddy-fol-lol." The
leading character was an old smith, to be named Downs, employed in
the forge of a large iron foundry at Bursley. Downs was a Primitive
Methodist of the narrowest type, and when his daughter fell in love
with and married a sceneshifter at the local theatre, she received
for dowry a father's curse. Once, in the foundry, Downs in speaking
of the matter had referred to his daughter as no better than a
"Tiddy-fol-lol," and for years afterwards a favourite sport of the
apprentice boys was to run after him, at a safe distance, calling
"Tiddy-fol-lol, Tiddy-fol-lol." The daughter, completely estranged
from her parent, died in giving birth to a son who grew up physically
strong and healthy, but half an idiot. At the age of twelve, quite
ignorant of his grandfather's identity, he was sent by his father to
work at the foundry. The other lads saw a chance for fun. Pointing
out Downs to him in the forge, they told him to go close to the man
and say "Tiddy-fol-lol." "What dost thee want?" Downs questioned
gruffly, when the boy stood before him with a vacant grin on his face.
"Tiddy-fol-lol," came the response, in the aggravating, uninflected
tones peculiar to an imbecile. Downs raised his tremendous arm in a
flash of anger, and felled the youngster with a blow on the side of
the head. Then he bade him rise. But the child, caught just under the
ear, had been struck dead. Downs was tried for manslaughter, pronounced
insane, and subsequently released as a harmless lunatic. The Salvation
Army took charge of him, and he lived by selling "War-Cries" in the
streets, still pursued by boys who shouted "Tiddy-fol-lol."
Properly elaborated, Richard opined, such a plot would make a powerful
story. In his brain the thing was already complete. The one difficulty
lay in the selection of a strong opening scene; that done, he was sure
the incidents of the tale would fall naturally into place. He began to
cogitate, but his thoughts went wool-gathering most pertinaciously,
though time after time he compelled them to return to the subject in
hand by force of knitted brows. He finished his pipe and recharged it.
The fire burnt low, and he put on more coal. Still no suitable opening
scene presented itself. His spirits slowly fell. What ailed him?
At length, an idea! He was not going to fail, after all. The story must
of course begin with a quarrel between old Downs and his daughter.
He drew up to the table, took a pen, and wrote the title; then a few
sentences, hurriedly, and then a page. Then he read what was written,
pronounced it unconvincing rubbish, and tore it up. Words were
untractable, and, besides, he could not _see_ the scene. He left the
table, and after studying a tale of de Maupassant's, started on a new
sheet, carefully imitating the manner of that writer. But he could by
no means satisfy himself. Mrs. Rowbotham appeared with the supper-tray,
and he laid his writing-materials on the bed. During supper he took up
de Maupassant once more, and at ten o'clock made yet a third attempt,
well knowing beforehand that it would not be successful. The plot
tumbled entirely to pieces; the conclusion especially was undramatic;
but how to alter it?...
He was disgusted with himself. He wondered what would happen to him if
he lost his situation. Supposing that the firm of Curpet and Smythe
failed! Smythe was a careless fellow, capable of ruining business in a
month if for any reason Curpet's restraining influence was withdrawn.
These and similar morbid fancies assailed him, and he went to bed sick
with misery, heartily wishing that he had been less precipitate in his
attempt to be industrious. He had a superstition that if he had waited
for the New Year, the adventure might have resulted more happily.
In the night he awoke, to lament upon his solitariness. Why had he
no congenial friends? How could he set about obtaining sympathetic
companionship? He needed, in particular, cultured feminine society.
Given that, he could work; without it he should accomplish nothing. He
reflected that in London there were probably thousands of "nice girls,"
pining for such men as he. What a ridiculous civilisation it was that
prevented him from meeting them! When he saw a promising girl in a
bus, why in the name of heaven should he not be at liberty to say to
her, "Look here, I can convince you that I mean well; let us make each
other's acquaintance"?... But convention, convention! He felt himself
to be imprisoned by a relentless, unscaleable wall.... Then he dreamt
that he was in a drawing-room full of young men and women, and that all
were chattering vivaciously and cleverly. He himself stood with his
back to the fire, and talked to a group of girls. They looked into his
face, as Adeline used to look. They grasped his ideals and his aims
without laborious explanations; half a word was sufficient to enlighten
them; he saw the gleam of appreciative comprehension in their eyes long
before his sentences were finished....