XI

Fanny had spoken no word to me, and I wondered greatly at that. She

had only smiled and laughed in a foolish way. And a few minutes later

I knew by her breathing--even through the closed doors, so much was

unmistakable--that she slept.

I may have sat there for an hour, nursing the bitterest kind of

reflections. Then I decided to go out, and found I had left my hat in

the bedroom. Very cautiously I opened one leaf of the folding doors,

tip-toed into the small room, and took my hat from the chair on which

it lay. My gaze fell for one instant across the recumbent figure of my

wife, and was withdrawn sharply. I went out with anger and revulsion

in my heart, and walked rather quickly for an hour, conscious of no

relief from bitterness, no softening of my feelings.

Then I happened to pass a familiar restaurant, and told myself I would

have some dinner. 'She must go her own way,' I muttered savagely.

I entered the place, found a seat, and consulted the bill of fare. A

greasily smiling Italian came to take my order.

'Madame is not wiz you, sare?' the fellow said.

We had not been there for a month, but he remembered; and, on the

instant, I recalled our last visit--the beginning of one of our fresh

starts. And this was the end of it. Well!

Suddenly I found myself reaching for my hat.

'No,' I said, 'madam is late. I will go and look for her.' And out I

went. In that moment I had seen pictures: Fanny, before our marriage,

on her knees at my hearth in the room in Howard Street; in her

dove-coloured frock on our marriage night, clinging to my arm when

she was fresh from the excitement of leaving Howard Street. There were

other scenes. What an immature and helpless child she was! And how

much help had I given her? After all, food and clothing and so forth,

freedom from tyranny--well, these were not everything. She needed more

intimate care and guidance. The responsibility was mine.

In the end I went to a shop and bought the materials for a meal, even

as on an evening which seemed very long ago, when I had given her

supper in my bedroom. Only, on this occasion, with a sigh which

contained considerable self-reproach, I omitted Burgundy, or any

equivalent thereto. We had the wherewithal for brewing tea in our

rooms. And so, carrying a supper for us both, I returned to the

lodging. And there was Fanny on her knees before the hearth in the

sitting-room, just as she had been on that previous occasion. And now

she was crying. Her nerveless fingers held no brush. The hearth was

far from speckless, and the grate held only dead grey ashes, and some

scraps of torn paper--my own wasted manuscript.

Fanny was weeping, weakly and quietly. She knew, then. She had not

forgotten that I had seen her. But her hair had been brushed. She wore

a different gown. She looked shrinkingly and fearfully up at me as I

came in.

'You better, little woman?' I said as I began to put down my parcels.

I had tried hard to make the words sound careless and normal,

kindly and cheerful. But I thought as I heard them that a man with a

quinsy might have managed a better tone.

In another moment she was clinging to me somehow, without having risen

to her feet, and sobbing out an incoherent expression of her penitence

and shame. I was tremendously moved. And, while seeking to console

her, my real sympathy for this sobbing child was shot through and

illumined by the most fatuous sort of optimism.

'I've been making a tragedy out of a disagreeable mishap,' I told

myself. 'She is only a child who has made herself ill. The thing won't

happen again, one may be sure. This is a lesson she will never forget.

No one could possibly mistake the genuineness of all this.' By which I

meant her heaving shoulders, streaming eyes, and penitent

self-abasement.

In the process of soothing her, of course, I made light of her

self-confessed baseness. I suppose I spent at least half an hour in

comforting her. Then we supped, with a hint of April gaiety towards

the end. I endeavoured to be humorous in a lover-like way. Fanny

dabbed her eyes, smiled, and choked, and even laughed a little. But

the vows, protestations, resolves for the future--these were all most

solemn and impressive.

And they all held good, too,--for a week and a half. And then our

landlady gave me notice, because in the broad light of mid-afternoon

Fanny had stumbled over the front door-mat on entering the house, and

lain there, laughing and singing; she had refused to move, and had had

to be dragged upstairs for appearance's sake.

The landlady must have occupied ten minutes, I think, in giving me

notice. Almost, I could have struck the poor soul before she was

through with it. When at length she drew breath, and allowed me to

escape, I thought her Cockney dialect the basest and vilest ever

evolved among the tongues of mankind. Yet the good woman was really

very civil, and rather kindly disposed towards me than otherwise, I

think. There was no good reason why I should have felt bitter towards

her. Rather, perhaps, I should have been apologetic. And it was clean

contrary to my nature and disposition, this savage bitterness. But one

of the curses of squalor is that it exacerbates the mildest temper,

corrodes and embitters every one it touches.

On the third morning after our instalment in new lodgings--two almost

exactly similar rooms, a little farther away from Mrs. Pelly and

Howard Street, in a turning off the lower Hampstead Road--I received a

letter, forwarded on from our first lodging, from Arncliffe, the

editor to whom, some four years before this time, I had taken a letter

of introduction. At intervals Arncliffe had accepted and published

quite a number of articles from my pen, but we had not again met,

unless one counts the occasion upon which I followed him into an

expensive restaurant at luncheon time, on the off-chance of being

noticed by him. The letter ran thus:

'Dear Mr. Freydon,--As you are probably aware, I am now in the chair

of the _Advocate_, and a pretty uneasy seat I find it, so far. It

occurs to me that we might be able to do something for each other.

Will you give me a call here between three and four one afternoon this

week, if you are not too busy.--Yours sincerely, Henry Arncliffe.'

The letter gave me rather a thrill. Sylvanus Creed had published two

books of mine, and my work had recently appeared in several of the

leading journals. But the _Advocate_ was certainly one of the oldest

and most famous of London's daily newspapers--I vaguely recalled

having read somewhere that it had changed its proprietors during the

past week or so--and I had never before received a summons from the

editor of such a journal. Fanny had a headache and was cross that

morning; but I told her of the letter, and explained that it might

easily mean some increase in my earnings.

'If he would commission me for a series of articles, we might afford

to take a room on the next floor for me to work in,' I said rather

selfishly perhaps.

'Groceries seem to be dearer every week,' said Fanny, 'and Mrs. Heaps

charges sevenpence for every scuttle of coal. I never heard of such a

price. Mother never charges more than sixpence, no matter if coal goes

up ever so.'

This touched a sore spot between us. It seemed Mrs. Pelly had two

rooms empty, and Fanny did not find it easy to forgive me for my

refusal to go and live in Howard Street.

If Arncliffe found his editorial chair an uneasy seat, it was not the

chair's fault. A more dignified and withal more ingeniously contrived

and padded resting-place for mortal limbs I never saw. And the

editorial apartment, how spacious, silent, and admirably adapted, in

the dignity of its lines and furnishings, for the reception of Cabinet

Ministers, and the excogitation of thunderbolts for the chancelleries

of Europe! It was currently reported in Fleet Street that Lord

Beaconsfield had been particularly familiar with the interior of that

apartment.

I found the great man in cheerful spirits, and looking fresher than

ordinary mortals, I suppose because his day had only just begun. From

him I learned how, some eight days previously, the _Advocate_ had been

purchased, lock, stock, and barrel (from the family whose members had

inherited possession of it), by Sir William Bartram, M.P., head of the

great engineering and contracting firm which bore his name. It seemed

Sir William had been advised by a very great statesman indeed to

secure the editorial services of Mr. Arncliffe; and he had managed to

do it in forty-eight hours by dint of the exercise of a certain amount

of political and social influence in various quarters, and by entering

into a contract which, for some years, at all events, would make

Arncliffe a tolerably rich man.

A good deal was left to my imagination, of course. It was assumed,

very kindly, that I understood the relations existing between this

nobleman and the other, as touching Sir William's precise influence

and sphere in the world of politics. Naturally, when the Party Whip

heard so and so, he went to Mr. ----, and the result, of course, was

pressure from Lord ----, which settled the matter in five minutes. I

nodded very intelligently at intervals, to show my recognition of the

inevitableness of it all; and so an end was reached of that stage in

our conversation.

In the slight pause which followed Arncliffe touched a spring

releasing the door of a cabinet apparently designed to hold State

Papers of the highest importance, and disclosed some beautiful boxes

of cigars and other creature comforts. It became clear to me, as I

thanked Arncliffe for the match he handed me, that he must have

forgotten the first impressions he had formed of me some years

earlier. Perhaps he had confused me in his mind with some other more

important and affluent person. And yet he did remember some of my

articles. His remarks proved that. I wondered if he could also

remember that they had reached him, some of them, from South

Tottenham. Probably not. And, if he did, his editorial omniscience

could hardly have given him knowledge of any of my slum garrets. On

the other hand, he clearly assumed that I was familiar with the life

of the House of Commons and the clubs of London, if not with that of

the other august and crimson-benched Chamber.

'You know L----,' he said, casually mentioning a leader in literary

journalism so prominent that I could not but be familiar with his

reputation.

'By name, of course,' I agreed.

'Ah! To be sure. And T----, and R----, and, I think, J----; yes, I've

got 'em all. So we ought to make the _Advocate_ move things along, if

the most brilliant staff in London can accomplish it.'

I nodded sympathetically, and presently gathered that over and above

all this the kindly and intimate relations subsisting between

Arncliffe and the principal occupants of the Treasury Bench (not to

mention a certain moiety of influence which might conceivably be

exercised by the new proprietor, Sir William) were such as to ensure

brilliant success and greatly increased prestige to the _Advocate_,

under the new regime.

All this was very pleasant hearing, of course, and at suitable

intervals I offered congratulatory movements of the head and eyebrows,

with murmured ejaculations to similar effect. But, as touching myself

and my obscure problems (of which such an Olympian as Arncliffe could,

naturally, have no conception), it was all somewhat insubstantial and

remote; rather of the stuff of which dreams are compounded. And so,

watching my opportunity, I presently ventured a tentative inquiry as

to the direction in which I might hope to justify the terms of Mr.

Arncliffe's letter, and be of any service.

'Oh! Well, of course, that's for you to say,' said the editor, with a

suggestion of having been suddenly curbed in full career. 'I may be

quite wrong in supposing such things would have any interest for you.

But I--I have followed--er--your work, you know; followed your work

and, in fact, it struck me you might like to join us here, you know.

It is a staff worth joining, I think, and-- But, of course, you are the

best judge of your own affairs.'

'It's extremely kind of you, extremely kind.'

'Not at all. I think you could do good work for the _Advocate_.'

'There's nothing I'd like better. But-- Do I understand that you mean

me to join your permanent staff, and come and work here in the

building every day?'

'Why, yes; yes, to be sure.'

'I see.'

It meant an end to my free-lancing then. But, after all, what had this

free-lancing meant, since my marriage? It would provide a place to

work in. The hours might not be excessive. The pay ... Fanny was for

ever talking of the increase in prices. My earnings, though on the up

grade, had seemed very insufficient of late. There certainly was

nothing to make me cling to our home as a place in which to carry on

my work.

'And in the matter of salary?' I said, as who should say that in such

a business it is well to glance at even the most trivial of details.

'Ah!' replied Arncliffe. 'Yes; that's a point now, isn't it? You see

the fact is I had a bit of a scene with the business side here

yesterday. We are new to each other as yet, you know--the manager and

myself. But he's a very decent fellow, and I shall soon have him

properly in hand, I'm sure of that. Meantime, of course, I have been

rather going it, you know, from his point of view. You can't get

L----, and T----, and R----, for tuppence-ha'penny, you know.'

'No, indeed, that's true,' said I, with the air of one who had tried

this game and proved its impossibility.

'No. And so, in the matter of pay I must go gently, you know, at

first. I must ca' canny for a while. I shall be able to make things

all right a little later on, you know, but just to begin with I'm

afraid I couldn't manage more than three or four hundred a year.'

I did not think it necessary to mention that my London record so far

was little more than half the lower sum mentioned. On the contrary, I

pinched my chin and said: 'Oh!' rather blankly, and without really

knowing what I said, or why I said it. I wanted to think, as a matter

of fact. But what I said was well enough.

'H'm! Yes, I see what you mean. It is poor, I know,' said Arncliffe,

in his quick, burbling way. 'But, as I say, I should hope to improve

it a little later on, you know. And, meantime, you may probably

continue to earn something outside, you know; so that two or three

hundred--say three hundred--but of course you're the best judge.'

Perhaps I was. I wonder! At all events, my mind was made up. The life

of the last few months had made it clear that I needed more money.

'Oh, I'll be very glad,' I said. 'By the way, you did mention at first

three or four, not two or three hundred.'

'Did I? Ah! Well, say three to begin with.'

I gathered it was rather difficult for the real Olympian to think at

all in figures so absurdly low. So we let it go at that, and, this

being a Friday, I agreed to start work at the office on the following

Monday.

'I shall be able to get a room here, shall I not?' I asked with some

anxiety.

'A room? Oh, surely, surely. Yes, yes, that's all right. Ask for me.

Come and see me before doing anything, and I'll see to it. So glad

we've fixed it. Good-bye!'

And so, very affably, I was bowed out of my free-lance life, the which

I had entered by way of the north-eastern slums.