STEPHEN'S TALE
I have said something of the change in my grandfather's habits after the
news of the loss of the _Juno_ and my father's death; something but not
all. Not only was he abstracted in manner and aged in look, but he grew
listless in matters of daily life, and even doubtful and infirm of
purpose: an amazing thing in him, whose decision of character had made
his a corner of the world in which his will was instant law. And with
it, and through it all, I could feel that I was the cause. "It ain't the
place for you, Stevy, never the place for you," he would say, wistful
and moody; wholly disregarding my protests, which I doubt he even heard.
"I've put one thing right," he said once, thinking aloud, as I sat on
his knee; "but it ain't enough; it ain't enough." And I was sure that he
was thinking of the watches and spoons.
As to that matter, people with valuables had wholly ceased from coming
to the private compartment. But the pale man still sat in his corner,
and Joe the potman still supplied the drink he neglected. His uneasiness
grew less apparent in a day or so; but he remained puzzled and curious,
though no doubt well enough content with this, the most patent example
of Grandfather Nat's irresolution.
As for Mr. Cripps, that deliberate artist's whole practice of life was
disorganised by Captain Nat's indifference, and he was driven to depend
for the barest necessaries on the casual generosity of the bar. In
particular he became the client of the unsober sailor I have spoken of
already: the disciplinarian, who had roared confirmation of my
grandfather's orders when the man of the silver spoons got his
dismissal. This sailor was old in the ways of Wapping, as in the
practice of soaking, it would seem, and he gave himself over to no
crimp. Being ashore, with money to spend, he preferred to come alone to
the bar of The Hole in the Wall, and spend it on himself, getting full
measure for every penny. Beyond his talent of ceaselessly absorbing
liquor without becoming wholly drunk, and a shrewd eye for his correct
change, he exhibited the single personal characteristic of a very
demonstrative respect for Captain Nat Kemp. He would confirm my
grandfather's slightest order with shouts and threats, which as often as
not were only to be quelled by a shout or a threat from my grandfather
himself, a thing of instant effect, however. "Ay, ay, sir!" the man
would answer, and humbly return to his pot. "Cap'en's orders" he would
sometimes add, with a wink and a hoarse whisper to a chance neighbour.
"Always 'bey cap'en's orders. Knowed 'em both, father _an'_ son."
So that Mr. Cripps's ready acquiescence in whatever was said loudly, and
in particular his own habit of blandiloquence, led to a sort of
agreement between the two, and an occasional drink at the sailor's
expense.
But, meantime, his chief patron was grown so abstracted from
considerations of the necessities of genius, so impervious to hints, so
deaf to all suggestion of grant-in-aid, that Mr. Cripps was driven to a
desperate and dramatic stroke. One morning he appeared in the bar
carrying the board for the sign; no tale of a board, no description or
account of a board, no estimate or admeasurement of a board; but the
actual, solid, material board itself.
By what expedient he had acquired it did not fully appear, and, indeed,
with him, cash and credit were about equally scarce. But upon one thing
he most vehemently insisted: that he dared not return home without the
money to pay for it. The ravening creditor would be lying in wait at the
corner of his street.
Mr. Cripps's device for breaking through Captain Nat's abstraction
succeeded beyond all calculation. For my grandfather laid hands on Mr.
Cripps and the board together, and hauled both straightway into the
skippers' parlour at the back.
"There's the board," he said with decision, "an' there's you. Where's
the paints an' brushes?"
Mr. Cripps's stock of paints was low, it seemed, or exhausted. His
brushes were at home and--his creditor was at the corner of the street.
"If I could take the proceeds"--Mr. Cripps began; but Grandfather Nat
interrupted. "Here's you, an' here's the board, an' we'll soon get the
tools: I'll send for 'em or buy new. Here, Joe! Joe'll get 'em. You say
what you want, an' he'll fetch 'em. Here you are, an' here you stick,
an' do my signboard!"
Mr. Cripps dared not struggle for his liberty, and indeed a promise of
his meals at the proper hours reconciled him to my grandfather's
defiance of Magna Charta. So the skipper's parlour became his studio;
and there he was left in company with his materials, a pot of beer, and
a screw of tobacco. I much desired to see the painting, but it was ruled
that Mr. Cripps must not be disturbed. I think I must have restrained my
curiosity for an hour at least, ere I ventured on tip-toe to peep
through a little window used for the passing in and out of drinks and
empty glasses. Here my view was somewhat obstructed by Mr. Cripps's pot,
which, being empty, he had placed upside down in the opening, as a
polite intimation to whomsoever it might concern; but I could see that
Mr. Cripps's labours having proceeded so far as the selection of a
convenient chair, he was now taking relaxation in profound slumber. So I
went away and said nothing.
When at last he was disturbed by the arrival of his dinner, Mr. Cripps
regained consciousness with a sudden bounce that almost deposited him on
the floor.
"Conception," he gasped, rubbing his eyes, "conception, an' meditation,
an' invention, is what you want in a job like this!"
"Ah," replied my grandfather grimly, "that's all, is it? Then common
things like dinner don't matter. Perhaps Joe'd better take it away?"
But it seemed that Mr. Cripps wanted his dinner too. He had it; but
Grandfather Nat made it clear that he should consider meditation wholly
inconsistent with tea. So that, in course of the afternoon, Mr. Cripps
was fain to paint the board white, and so earn a liberal interval of
rest, while it dried. And at night he went away home without the price
of the board, but, instead, a note to the effect that the amount was
payable on application to Captain Kemp at the Hole in the Wall, Wapping.
This note was the production, after three successive failures, of my own
pen, and to me a matter of great pride and delight; so that I was sadly
disappointed to observe that Mr. Cripps received it with emotions of a
wholly different character.
Next morning Mr. Cripps returned to durance with another pot and another
screw of tobacco. Grandfather Nat had business in the Minories in the
matter of a distiller's account; and for this reason divers injunctions,
stipulations, and warnings were entered into and laid upon Mr. Cripps
before his departure. As for instance:--
It was agreed that Mr. Cripps should remain in the skipper's parlour.
Also (after some trouble) that no exception should be made to the
foregoing stipulation, even in the event of Mr. Cripps feeling it
necessary to go out somewhere to study a brick wall (or the hole in it)
from nature.
Nor even if he felt overcome by the smell of paint.
Agreed, however: that an exception be granted in the event of the house
being on fire.
Further: this with more trouble: that one pot of beer before dinner is
enough for any man seriously bent on the pursuit of art.
Moreover: that the board must not be painted white again.
Lastly: that the period of invention and meditation be considered at an
end; and that sleep on Mr. Cripps's part be regarded as an
acknowledgment that meals are over for the day.
These articles being at length agreed and confirmed, and Mr. Cripps
having been duly witnessed to make certain marks with charcoal on the
white board, as a guarantee of good faith, Grandfather Nat and I set out
for the Minories.
His moodiness notwithstanding, it was part of his new habit to keep me
near him as much as possible, day and night, with a sort of wistful
jealousy. So we walked hand in hand over the swing bridge, past Paddy's
Goose, into the Highway, and on through that same pageant of romance and
squalor. The tradesmen at their doors saluted Grandfather Nat with a
subdued regard, as I had observed most people to do since the news of
_Juno's_ wreck. Indeed that disaster was very freely spoken of, all
along the waterside, as a deliberate scuttling, and it was felt that
Captain Nat could lay his bereavement to something worse than the fair
chance of the seas. Such things were a part of the daily talk by the
Docks, and here all the familiar features were present; while it was
especially noted that nothing had been seen of Viney since the news
came. He meant to lie safe, said the gossips; since, as a bankrupt, he
stood to gain nothing by the insurance.
One tradesman alone, a publican just beyond Blue Gate, greeted my
grandfather noisily, but he was thoughtless with the pride of commercial
achievement. For he was enlarging his bar, a large one already, by the
demolition of the adjoining shop, and he was anxious to exhibit and
explain his designs.
"Why, good mornin', Cap'en," cried the publican, from amid scaffold
poles and brick-dust. "You're a stranger lately. See what I'm doin'?
Here: come in here an' look. How's this, eh? Another pair o' doors just
over there, an' the bar brought round like so, an' that for Bottle an'
Jug, and throw the rest into Public Bar. Eh?"
The party wall had already been removed, and the structure above rested
on baulks and beams. The bar was screened off now from the place of its
enlargement by nothing but canvas and tarpaulin, and my grandfather and
his acquaintance stood with their backs to this, to survey the work of
the builders.
Waiting by my grandfather's side while he talked, I was soon aware that
business was brisk in the bar beyond the canvas; and I listened idly to
the hum of custom and debate. Suddenly I grew aware of a voice I
knew--an acrid voice just within the canvas.
"Then if you're useless, I ain't," said the voice, "an' I shan't let it
drop." And indeed it was Mrs. Grimes who spoke.
I looked up quickly at Grandfather Nat, but he was interested in his
discussion, and plainly had not heard. Mrs. Grimes's declaration drew a
growling answer in a man's voice, wholly indistinct; and I found a patch
in the canvas, with a loose corner, which afforded a peep-hole.
Mrs. Grimes was nearest, with her back to the canvas, so that her skirts
threatened to close my view. Opposite her were two persons, in the
nearest of whom I was surprised to recognise the coarse-faced woman I
had seen twice before: once when she came asking confused questions to
Grandfather Nat about the man who sold a watch, and once when she
fainted at the inquest, and Mrs. Grimes was too respectable to stay near
her. The woman looked sorrowful and drawn about the eyes and cheeks, and
she held to the arm of a tall, raw-boned man. His face was seamed with
ragged and blistered skin, and he wore a shade over the hollows where
now, peeping upward, I could see no eyes, but shut and sunken lids; so
that at first it was hard to recognise the fellow who had been talking
to this same coarse-faced woman by Blue Gate, when she left him to ask
those questions of my grandfather; and indeed I should never have
remembered him but that the woman brought him to my mind.
It was this man whose growling answer I had heard. Now Mrs. Grimes spoke
again. "All my fault from the beginning?" she said. "O yes, I like that:
because I wanted to keep myself respectable! My fault or not, I shan't
wait any longer for you. If I ain't to have it, you shan't. An' if I
can't get the money I can get something else."
The man growled again and swore, and beat his stick impotently on the
floor. "You're a fool," he said. "Can't you wait till I'm a bit
straight? You an' your revenge! Pah! When there's money to be had!"
"Not much to be had your way, it seems, the mess you've made of it; an'
precious likely to do any better now, ain't you? An' as to money--well
there's rewards given----"
Grandfather Nat's hand fell on my cap, and startled me. He had
congratulated his friend, approved his plans, made a few suggestions,
and now was ready to resume the walk. He talked still as he took my
hand, and stood thus for a few minutes by the door, exchanging views
with the publican on the weather, the last ships in, and the state of
trade. I heard one more growl, louder and angrier than the others, from
beyond the screen, and a sharper answer, and then there was a movement
and the slam of a door; and I got over the step, and stretched my
grandfather's arm and my own to see Mrs. Grimes go walking up the
street.
When we were free of the publican, I told Grandfather Nat that I had
seen Mrs. Grimes in the bar. He made so indifferent a reply that I said
nothing of the conversation I had overheard; for indeed I knew nothing
of its significance. And so we went about our business.