STRUGGLES FOR A LIVING.
When at Christmas time Robert Gregory heard that one of the springs
which were supposed to open the secret door was found, he gave up for a
time even the pretence of looking for anything to do; but not very long
afterwards he met an old friend, and most unexpectedly went into a
business with him, and that perhaps the only one which could have been
named for which he was really fitted.
He had one day, as was his usual custom, entered a public-house where he
was well known, and had gone into the bar parlour, where he was sitting
reading the paper, smoking his pipe, and drinking a glass of spirits and
water, when another man entered the room, looked carelessly at Gregory,
then more attentively, and finally burst out,--
"Hallo, Robert? is that you? How fares the world with you all this
time?"
"By Jove, Fielding! is that you? How are you, my boy?"
They greeted each other warmly, for they had been a great deal together
in the time when Gregory was in London, and their satisfaction at
meeting was mutual. After a while, they sat down before the fire,
ordered fresh glasses of spirits and water, and prepared for a long talk
over all that had happened since they had parted some four years
ago--Robert to return to his father at Canterbury, Fielding to continue
for a short time longer the reckless life they were living about town.
"Now, Gregory," Fielding said, "let me hear what you have been doing
first."
Robert, in reply, related pretty accurately the whole of his life since
he had left London.
"Well, that is a rum start," his companion said when he had finished his
story. "And you really think that you will some day come in for all this
money?"
"I do," Robert answered. "As I have told you they are trying down there
now, and have a good chance; but if that fails, I mean to try for it
myself. And now what have you been doing?"
"The easiest way to answer would be to tell you what I have not been
doing. You left us in the winter, and I held on, as I had been doing
before, till the next Derby Day; but I dropped so much upon that, that I
had to make myself scarce for a bit. Then I came back again, and set to
work to earn my living, and very hard work I found it."
"I should think so," Robert Gregory put in. "I have been trying to get
something to do for the last three months, and I am no nearer, as far as
I can see, than when I began. How did you set about it?"
"To tell you the truth, Robert, I found it rather up-hill work at first.
I worked for the papers for a bit,--went to all the fires, and the
inquests, and the hospitals, and sent accounts to all the dailies. Of
course at first they did not often put them in, still they did
sometimes, and after a month or two they came to take them pretty
regularly. At last I did what I really very seldom did do; but I was
very hard-up, and I sent an account of a fire which only existed in my
imagination. Well, it turned out that there was a row about it, and of
course that put an end to that line. It was winter then, and I was very
hard-up, and was glad to earn a few shillings a week as super at one of
the pantomimes. Then I happened to meet with a man with a few pounds,
and together we set up a very profitable business--advertising to find
situations for clerks and servants. They paid us five shillings to enter
their names in our books; then we answered every advertisement that
appeared in any of the papers for that sort of thing, and sent them to
look after the situations. If they got them, they paid us thirty per
cent, on the first year's earnings, down on the nail. There were three
or four of us in that game. I kept the head office, and they took places
in other parts, and each of them wanted clerks at L150 a year. It was a
capital dodge, and we made a lot of money; but at last it got blown
upon, and we had to give it up.
"Then I did the ladies employment business. Lessons given for a guinea,
and constant employment guaranteed when the art was learnt. We used to
send them a book on illuminating, which by the gross cost us twopence
each. None of the ladies, as it turned out, ever became perfect enough
for us to give them employment; but that was their fault you know, not
ours. Well, that paid uncommonly well for a bit. After that, I tried no
end of moves, and did sometimes well, sometimes badly; still I was not
often without a sovereign in my pocket. At last I took up my present
line; I have been at it now a year and a half, and I mean to stick to
it."
"What is it?" Robert Gregory asked rather curiously, for his companion
had the look of a well-to-do man, although perhaps rather of a sporting
cut. He wore a good substantial great-coat with a velvet collar, a very
good hat, put rather on one side of his head, and a quiet scarf, with a
gold pin representing a jockey's cap and whip.
"I am a betting man," Fielding said. "I make a book on all the races. I
have certain places--public-houses, quiet streets, and so on--where I am
always to be found at regular hours of the day, and I do a very fair
business."
"And do you always win, Fielding?"
"Not always; occasionally one gets hit hard, but nineteen times out of
twenty, if one is careful, one wins. The great thing is always to have
enough in hand to pay your losses the day after the race; and as one
receives all the money when the bets are made, two or three months
before a race, it is hard if one cannot do that. In this way I have got
a good name, am looked upon as a safe man, and so am getting a good
business together.
"What do you make on an average a week?"
"Well, on an average, five or six pounds--more than that a good deal in
the season, but very little just at this time of year; in a month or so
I shall be beginning again."
"I should like to join you, Fielding," Robert said, eagerly.
"Aye, but what capital could you put in? I acknowledge I could do very
well with a partner who would take one end of the town while I took the
other. I could easily double the business. But I should want a good sum
of money with one. I have been, as I told you, a year and a half at it,
and have got a good connection together."
"How much do you call a good sum?"
"That would depend upon the man," Fielding answered. "I have known you
well, and I am sure we should pull well together. I would take a hundred
pounds with you; not for my own use, mind, but to lay in a bank in our
joint names. You see it makes the beginning of an account, and we could
pay in there all we took, and settle our losses by cheques, which looks
much better, and would give us a much better name altogether."
"I should have difficulty in getting a hundred pounds," Robert said; and
indeed the sixty pounds the pony carriage had fetched had melted away
very fast; for Robert had spent a large amount in this daily search for
employment, and Sophy often wondered to herself, with a little sigh, how
Robert could possibly spend as much money as he did. "No, Fielding, I am
sure I could not manage a hundred, but I think I could go as far as
sixty."
"Suppose you think it over, Gregory, and see what you can do. Let us
meet here again to-morrow at the same time, and then we will enter into
it again; and I will bring you some of my old books to show you that
what I say is correct."
"Very well," Robert said, and they parted to meet again next day.
That evening Robert told Sophy what had occurred, and said that it
seemed to him an opportunity for getting on which might not occur to him
again, but that he would be guided entirely by her.
Sophy was a little alarmed at the thought of their whole available
capital being embarked; but she assented cheerfully to the proposal, as
she was delighted at anything which seemed likely to occupy Robert's
time and thoughts, and prevent him being driven, from sheer want of
something to do, to spend his time in drinking. So the next day the
grand pianoforte was sent to an auction-room to be sold; it fetched
fifty-five pounds, and with this and twenty-five of their former stock
Robert joined Fielding as a partner, leaving a solitary ten pounds only
in Sophy's charge. But as she was now regularly giving lessons six hours
a day, she had very little occasion to break in upon this, as the
thirty-six shillings she earned quite covered her household expenses;
and she was now able to go to her work with a light heart, knowing that
her absence from home no longer drove her husband to spend his time in
public-houses.
The firm of Gregory and Fielding flourished; in a short time they had
plenty to do; and as the spring came on and the racing season began,
they had their hands quite full. At first they went about together; and
then, when Robert became known to Fielding's connection, the one took
the east end of the town, the other the west, meeting twice a day at
some middle point to compare their books and see how they stood. They
now, too, started as racing prophets and commission agents, and
advertised in the sporting papers, and by the end of April they were
making a large income. How large a portion of the money they received
would be clear profit, they could not tell until the races were over, so
they agreed to draw five pounds a week each, and to pay the rest into
the bank to draw from as required. Sophy knew Robert was doing well; for
he again begged her to give up teaching, and generally gave her four
pounds out of the five he drew every week for the expenses. This was, as
she told him double what they spent; but he said that he was making
that, and therefore gave it to her; that he did not want to know how it
went, but any she could save she might put by with her own earnings, in
case of a rainy day.
For the first two months after Robert Gregory had commenced his work,
his wife did not see much of him, for his business now often kept him
out the whole evening; and when he came back late he was seldom quite
sober, and he was frequently not up when she started to her work at nine
o'clock. This went on until, in the middle of March, the news came that
the secret of the door was found, and Robert was in such a state of
excitement at what he considered the certainty of the missing will being
found, that he was quite unable to attend to his business, so Fielding
agreed to give him a holiday at any rate until he heard of the result.
These three days Robert spent in going about from public-house to
public-house treating every one he knew; telling them all it was
probable that this was the last time he should see them, as he was about
to come into an immense fortune. Proportionate therefore to his
exultation, was the disappointment when the news came that the secret
chamber had been entered, and that the will was not there. Sophy had
never seen him in a rage before, indeed she had never seen any one
really in a passion, and she was thoroughly frightened and horror-struck
by it. She listened in silence to the terrible imprecations and oaths
which he poured out, and which shocked and terrified her indeed, but of
the meaning of which she had, of course, not the slightest idea.
At last he calmed down, but from that time he was a changed man. Among
his associates he had no longer a loud laugh and ready joke; he was
become a moody, surly man, doing all that he had to do in a dogged,
resolute way, as if it was only by sheer force of will that he could
keep his attention to the work upon which he was engaged. He came to be
known among them as a dangerous customer; for one or two of them who had
ventured to joke him about the fortune he had told them of, had been
warned fiercely and savagely to leave that subject alone; while one who,
more adventurous than the others, had disregarded the warning and
continued his jokes, had been attacked with such fury, that had not
Robert been pulled off him by the bystanders, the consequences would
have been most serious. So it came to be understood amongst them that he
was a man who was safer to be left alone.
Still the business did not suffer by the change, but, as I have said,
throve and increased wonderfully through the months of April and May.
People seemed to fancy that their money was safer with "Surly Bob," as
he generally came to be known among them, than with some of the other
offhand, careless, joking speculators. At any rate, the firm throve.
They were lucky on the "Two Thousand," and won heavily upon the "Derby;"
so the money in the bank accumulated, and Fielding and Gregory came to
be looked well upon among their associates.
Robert now arranged for his partner to take as much as possible of the
evening work off his hands. He gave up all his former companions, and
returned back to Sophy at half-past six, after which, except on the week
preceding very important races, when he was obliged to be at work, he
did not go out again.
But he did not give up drinking. He told Sophy that he would stop at
home of an evening if she would not interfere with him, but that he
could not give up drink till the will was found or they started for
Australia: in either of which cases, he swore a great oath that he would
never touch spirits again.
Sophy tried in vain to point out to him that the will now seemed
altogether lost, and that it would be better to start for abroad at
once. But Robert said that he did not give it up yet, and that, as he
was doing very well, he was in no hurry to start; but that if by the end
of the next racing season--that was to say, in about eighteen months--it
was not found, he would give up his present work and go abroad, for by
that time he should have made enough money to take them out comfortably,
and to start them fairly in the new country.
Indeed, in his heart Robert Gregory would rather have gone on as he was,
for he knew that he should find no work out in the colony so easy and
suitable for him as his present; but yet he was determined that he would
go, for Sophy's sake. He thought that there, with hard work as a
settler, he could keep from drink, and he was sincere in his
determination never again to touch it. There he might be a respectable
man yet, and, cost him what it would, he was resolved to try.
Sophy was satisfied with the new arrangement. She was glad to know that,
at any rate, he was now safe at home of an evening. It relieved her from
the anxiety with which she had sat, sometimes for hours, listening for
his heavy, and usually unsteady, footfall. So after that Robert,
whenever he could, stayed at home, drank large quantities of spirits,
and smoked moodily; arousing himself sometimes to talk with Sophy, who
would sit by working, and always ready to answer with a cheerful smile.
Occasionally he brought home some book or paper about Australia, and
Sophy looked through it and read out to him such parts as she thought
would interest him; and then he would leave his spirits untasted for a
while, and listen to the accounts of the struggles of the back-wood
settler, of the clearings in the dark forests, and of the abundant
return nature gave for the labour; and his eye would brighten, and his
finger tighten as if on the handle of an axe, and he longed for the time
to come when he too would be there, away from all debasing associations,
and out of reach of the spirit-bottle. And sometimes he told Sophy that
perhaps, after all, he should not wait as long as he had said, but might
start in the early spring. The spirits he drank of an evening had little
effect upon his hardened frame, and he generally went to bed, if not
quite sober, at any rate not very drunk.
He now succeeded in persuading Sophy to give up teaching; telling her
that she might be of the greatest use answering the correspondence of
the firm, for that this was now growing too large for them to manage. He
urged that they would otherwise have to pay some one else to do it, and
that it would be a great annoyance to have to let a stranger into all
their secrets. He added that of course they should be glad to pay her
for her work instead of a clerk, and that they would give her
thirty-five shillings per week, which she should have for her own
private use.
Sophy, seeing that she really could be of service, at once agreed; and
telling her pupils that for a time she must give up teaching, she
settled to her new employment. Accordingly, the first thing after
breakfast of a morning, she now sat down to her writing-desk, with the
list, on one side of her, of the horses selected by the firm as the
probable winners of the various races; on the other, of the entries for
the different races, and the current odds against each horse. She then
opened the letters received that morning, and made a list of the various
commissions sent to back different horses, to be given to Robert when he
came in for them at one o'clock; then she answered those which required
reply, and sent out circulars and lists to their numerous town and
country subscribers. Generally she had done her work about twelve
o'clock, but on the few days preceding great races she was frequently
engaged until quite late in the evening.
However, she liked it much better than the teaching, for there was a
certain excitement in seeing whether the prophecies of the firm were
correct; and as she now knew pretty nearly what horses they stood to win
or lose upon in each race, she quite shared in their interest in the
result of the different events. Every Saturday she received her pay,
which she put by as regularly. She had now two funds. The one she
considered the common fund; this consisted of the ten pounds which
remained in hand after paying the partnership money to Fielding, and
which had been increasing at the rate of nearly two pounds a week--her
savings out of the housekeeping money--ever since that time; the other
was her private fund, her own earnings since Robert had been able to pay
their expenses. Of the existence of either of these hoards Robert was
quite ignorant. He was himself so careless in money matters, and had
always parted with his money so freely, that he never thought what Sophy
was saving. He knew that she always had everything very comfortable for
him, and he asked nothing more. If he had been asked, he would have
said, perhaps, that Sophy might have laid by a few pounds; but if he had
been told what the total amount came to at the end of the six months, he
would have been perfectly astounded. But Sophy said nothing about it.
She was laying it by till the time should come for starting abroad.
She was more comfortable now than she had been at all. Her husband,
although he was gloomy, and talked little, still was not unkind, and
very, very seldom spoke harshly to her.
Mrs. Billow had turned out a really kind-hearted, motherly old woman,
and had conceived quite an affection for her quiet, pale young lodger.
Mr. Billow she saw very little of. He was generally quite drunk or
asleep, and she never heard him except as he tumbled upstairs to bed. At
first, indeed, he had been inclined to be disagreeable, and had taken
upon himself to tell Robert Gregory that he would not have his lodgers
coming in drunk at all times of the night. But Robert turned upon him
fiercely, loaded him with abuse, told him that he was a drunken old
vagabond, and a receiver of stolen goods; and that if he ever ventured
to say a word to him again, he would go the next morning to Scotland
Yard, and mention what he knew of his goings on.
Mr. Billow cowered under this fierce and unexpected attack, and was from
that time in deadly fear of his lodger, and kept scrupulously out of his
sight.
Sophy, too, had by this time got to know many of her neighbours,--most
of them professional people, simple, kind-hearted women with families,
struggling hard for existence. Some of these would frequently bring
their work over of an afternoon, and sit awhile with her. They would on
these occasions talk unrestrainedly of their lives and struggles; and
Sophy came to take quite an interest in their histories, and occasional
little triumphs, and in talk with them forgot her own trials and
troubles. They would have been much more sociable had Sophy chosen, and
several times asked her and her husband over to take tea with them, on
evenings when they were not professionally engaged. But Sophy declined
these invitations, saying that her husband had a dislike to society, and
would not go out anywhere. Their only visitor of an evening was
Fielding, who occasionally came over for a quiet talk with his partner,
to compare their books, and discuss at leisure the chances of the
various horses, and which to lay against. He took a strong liking to
Robert's quiet lady-wife, reminding him as she did of the women he used
to meet when he was young, before he left his father, a quiet country
clergyman, and came up to London.
Sophy's great treat was upon occasions when the firm had done
particularly well, and when Robert had come home in an unusually good
temper. Then Sophy would petition him to take her to the theatre; and as
it was so very seldom that Sophy did ask for anything, Robert, on these
occasions, would give up his pipe and his spirit-bottle, and go with her
to the pit of one of the theatres. These were the great treats of
Sophy's life, and she enjoyed them immensely. She had never been to a
theatre before the first of these expeditions, and she entered into it
with all her heart. Even Robert was pleased at seeing her gratified, and
promised himself that he would come oftener with her, as when so little
made her happy he would be a brute not to let her have that little. It
was too much self-denial, however, for him voluntarily to suggest giving
up his spirits and his pipe, but he never refused on the rare occasions
when she proposed it; and when he did go, he went willingly, and with an
air of pleasure which doubled Sophy's enjoyment. After their return from
the theatre, Sophy always had a nice little supper ready--some oysters,
or a lobster; and they would chat over their evening's entertainment,
while Robert drank a glass of spirits-and-water, before going to bed;
and Sophy, for the time, would really feel as happy as she had long ago
dreamt she should be when Robert Gregory was her husband.