"I beg your pardon for speaking of her," he had the grace to say, "but
I couldn't help slipping to the window often yesterday to look for
Jenny, and when she did come and I saw she was crying, it--it a sort of
confused me, and I didn't know right, sir, what I was doing. I hit
against a member, Mr. Myddleton Finch, and he--he jumped and swore at
me. Well, sir, I had just touched him after all, and I was so
miserable, it a kind of stung me to be treated like--like that, and me
a man as well as him, and I lost my senses, and--and I swore back."
William's shamed head sank on his chest, but I even let pass his
insolence in likening himself to a member of the club, so afraid was I
of the sleepers waking and detecting me in talk with a waiter.
"For the love of God," William cried, with coarse emotion, "don't let
them dismiss me!"
"Speak lower!" I said. "Who sent you here?"
"I was turned out of the dining-room at once, and told to attend to the
library until they had decided what to do with me. Oh, sir, I'll lose
my place!"
He was blubbering, as if a change of waiters was a matter of
importance.
"This is very bad, William," I said. "I fear I can do nothing for you."
"Have mercy on a distracted man!" he entreated. "I'll go on my knees to
Mr. Myddleton Finch."
How could I but despise a fellow who would be thus abject for a pound a
week?
"I dare not tell her," he continued, "that I have lost my place. She
would just fall back and die."
"I forbade your speaking of your wife," I said, sharply, "unless you
can speak pleasantly of her."
"But she may be worse now, sir, and I cannot even see Jenny from here.
The library windows look to the back."
"If she dies," I said, "it will be a warning to you to marry a stronger
woman next time."
Now, every one knows that there is little real affection among the
lower orders. As soon as they have lost one mate they take another. Yet
William, forgetting our relative positions, drew himself up and raised
his fist, and if I had not stepped back I swear he would have struck
me.
The highly improper words William used I will omit, out of
consideration for him. Even while he was apologizing for them I retired
to the smoking-room, where I found the cigarettes so badly rolled that
they would not keep alight. After a little I remembered that I wanted
to see Myddleton Finch about an improved saddle of which a friend of
his has the patent. He was in the news-room, and having questioned him
about the saddle, I said:
"By the way, what is this story about your swearing at one of the
waiters?"
"You mean about his swearing at me," Myddleton Finch replied,
reddening.
"I am glad that was it," I said. "For I could not believe you guilty of
such bad form."
"If I did swear----" he was beginning, but I went on:
"The version which reached me was that you swore at him, and he
repeated the word. I heard he was to be dismissed and you reprimanded."
"Who told you that?" asked Myddleton Finch, who is a timid man.
"I forget; it is club talk," I replied lightly. "But of course the
committee will take your word. The waiter, whichever one he is, richly
deserves his dismissal for insulting you without provocation."
Then our talk returned to the saddle, but Myddleton Finch was
abstracted, and presently he said:
"Do you know, I fancy I was wrong in thinking that waiter swore at me,
and I'll withdraw my charge to-morrow."
Myddleton Finch then left me, and, sitting alone, I realized that I had
been doing William a service. To some slight extent I may have
intentionally helped him to retain his place in the club, and I now see
the reason, which was that he alone knows precisely to what extent I
like my claret heated.
For a mere second I remembered William's remark that he should not be
able to see the girl Jenny from the library windows. Then this
recollection drove from my head that I had only dined in the sense that
my dinner-bill was paid. Returning to the dining-room, I happened to
take my chair at the window, and while I was eating a devilled kidney I
saw in the street the girl whose nods had such an absurd effect on
William.
The children of the poor are as thoughtless as their parents, and this
Jenny did not sign to the windows in the hope that William might see
her, though she could not see him. Her face, which was disgracefully
dirty, bore doubt and dismay on it, but whether she brought good news
it would not tell. Somehow I had expected her to signal when she saw
me, and, though her message could not interest me, I was in the mood in
which one is irritated at that not taking place which he is awaiting.
Ultimately she seemed to be making up her mind to go away.
A boy was passing with the evening papers, and I hurried out to get
one, rather thoughtlessly, for we have all the papers in the club.
Unfortunately I misunderstood the direction the boy had taken; but
round the first corner (out of sight of the club windows) I saw the
girl Jenny, and so I asked her how William's wife was.
"Did he send you to me?" she replied, impertinently taking me for a
waiter. "My!" she added, after a second scrutiny, "I b'lieve you're one
of them. His missis is a bit better, and I was to tell him as she took
all the tapiocar."
"How could you tell him?" I asked.
"I was to do like this," she replied, and went through the supping of
something out of a plate in dumb show.
"That would not show she ate all the tapioca," I said.
"But I was to end like this," she answered, licking an imaginary plate
with her tongue. I gave her a shilling (to get rid of her), and
returned to the club disgusted.
Later in the evening I had to go to the club library for a book, and
while William was looking in vain for it (I had forgotten the title) I
said to him:
"By the way, William, Mr. Myddleton Finch is to tell the committee that
he was mistaken in the charge he brought against you, so you will
doubtless be restored to the dining-room to-morrow."
The two members were still in their chairs, probably sleeping lightly;
yet he had the effrontery to thank me.
"Don't thank me," I said, blushing at the imputation. "Remember your
place, William!"
"But Mr. Myddleton Finch knew I swore," he insisted.
"A gentleman," I replied, stiffly, "cannot remember for twenty-four
hours what a waiter has said to him."
"No, sir, but----"
To stop him I had to say:
"And, ah, William, your wife is a little better. She has eaten the
tapioca--all of it."
"How can you know, sir?"
"By an accident."
"Jenny signed to the window."
"No."
"Then you saw her, and went out, and----"
"Nonsense!"
"Oh, sir, to do that for me! May God bl----"
"William!"
"Forgive me, sir, but--when I tell my missis, she will say it was
thought of your own wife as made you do it."
He wrung my hand. I dared not withdraw it, lest we should waken the
sleepers.
William returned to the dining-room, and I had to show him that, if he
did not cease looking gratefully at me, I must change my waiter. I also
ordered him to stop telling me nightly how his wife was, but I
continued to know, as I could not help seeing the girl Jenny from the
window. Twice in a week I learned from this objectionable child that
the ailing woman had again eaten all the tapioca. Then I became
suspicious of William. I will tell why.
It began with a remark of Captain Upjohn's. We had been speaking of the
inconvenience of not being able to get a hot dish served after 1 A.M.,
and he said:
"It is because these lazy waiters would strike. If the beggars had a
love of their work, they would not rush away from the club the moment
one o'clock strikes. That glum fellow who often waits on you takes to
his heels the moment he is clear of the club steps. He ran into me the
other night at the top of the street, and was off without apologizing."
"You mean the foot of the street, Upjohn," I said, for such is the way
to Drury Lane.
"No; I mean the top. The man was running west."
"East."
"West."
I smiled, which so annoyed him that he bet me two to one in sovereigns.
The bet could have been decided most quickly by asking William a
question, but I thought, foolishly doubtless, that it might hurt his
feelings, so I watched him leave the club. The possibility of Upjohn's
winning the bet had seemed remote to me. Conceive my surprise,
therefore, when William went westward.
Amazed, I pursued him along two streets without realizing that I was
doing so. Then curiosity put me into a hansom. We followed William, and
it proved to be a three-shilling fare, for running when he was in
breath and walking when he was out of it, he took me to West
Kensington.
I discharged my cab, and from across the street watched William's
incomprehensible behavior. He had stopped at a dingy row of workmen's
houses, and knocked at the darkened window of one of them. Presently a
light showed. So far as I could see, someone pulled up the blind and
for ten minutes talked to William. I was uncertain whether they talked
for the window was not opened, and I felt that, had William spoken
through the glass loud enough to be heard inside, I must have heard him
too. Yet he nodded and beckoned. I was still bewildered when, by
setting off the way he had come, he gave me the opportunity of going
home.
Knowing from the talk of the club what the lower orders are, could I
doubt that this was some discreditable love affair of William's? His
solicitude for his wife had been mere pretence; so far as it was
genuine, it meant that he feared she might recover. He probably told
her that he was detained nightly in the club till three.
I was miserable next day and blamed the devilled kidneys for it.
Whether William was unfaithful to his wife was nothing to me, but I had
two plain reasons for insisting on his going straight home from his
club: the one, that, as he had made me lose a bet, I would punish him;
the other, that he could wait upon me better if he went to bed betimes.
Yet I did not question him. There was something in his face that----.
Well, I seemed to see his dying wife in it.
I was so out of sorts that I could eat no dinner. I left the club.
Happening to stand for some time at the foot of the street, I chanced
to see the girl Jenny coming, and----. No; let me tell the truth,
though the whole club reads; I was waiting for her.
"How is William's wife to-day?" I asked.
"She told me to nod three times," the little slattern replied; "but she
looked like nothink but a dead one till she got the brandy."
"Hush, child!" I said, shocked. "You don't know how the dead look."
"Bless yer," she answered, "don't I just! Why, I've helped to lay 'em
out. I'm going on seven."
"Is William good to his wife?"
"Course he is. Ain't she his missis?"
"Why should that make him good to her?" I asked cynically, out of my
knowledge of the poor. But the girl, precocious in many ways, had never
had my opportunities of studying the lower classes in the newspapers,
fiction, and club talk. She shut one eye, and looking up wonderingly,
said:
"Ain't you green--just!"
"When does William reach home at night?"
"'Tain't night; it's morning. When I wakes up at half dark and half
light and hears a door shutting I know as it's either father going off
to his work or Mr. Hicking coming home from his."
"Who is Mr. Hicking?"
"Him as we've been speaking on--William. We calls him mister, 'cause
he's a toff. Father's just doing jobs in Covent Garden, but Mr.
Hicking, he's a waiter, and a clean shirt every day. The old woman
would like father to be a waiter, but he hain't got the 'ristocratic
look."
"What old woman?"
"Go 'long! that's my mother. Is it true there's a waiter in the club
just for to open the door?"
"Yes, but----"
"And another just for to lick the stamps? My!"
"William leaves the club at one o'clock?" I said, interrogatively.
She nodded. "My mother," she said, "is one to talk, and she says to Mr.
Hicking as he should get away at twelve, 'cause his missis needs him
more'n the gentlemen need him. The old woman do talk."
"And what does William answer to that?"
"He says as the gentlemen can't be kept waiting for their cheese."
"But William does not go straight home when he leaves the club?"
"That's the kid."
"Kid!" I echoed, scarcely understanding, for knowing how little the
poor love their children, I had asked William no questions about the
baby.
"Didn't you know his missis had a kid?"
"Yes, but that is no excuse for William's staying away from his sick
wife," I answered, sharply. A baby in such a home as William's, I
reflected, must be trying, but still----. Besides his class can sleep
through any din.
"The kid ain't in our court," the girl explained. "He's in W., he is,
and I've never been out of W.C., leastwise, not as I knows on."
"This is W. I suppose you mean that the child is at West Kensington?
Well, no doubt it was better for William's wife to get rid of the
child----"
"Better!" interposed the girl. "'Tain't better for her not to have the
kid. Ain't her not having him what she's always thinking on when she
looks like a dead one."
"How could you know that?"
"'Cause," answered the girl, illustrating her words with a gesture, "I
watches her, and I sees her arms going this way, just like as she
wanted to hug her kid."
"Possibly you are right," I said, frowning, "but William has put the
child out to nurse because it disturbed his night's rest. A man who has
his work to do----"
"You are green!"
"Then why have the mother and child been separated?"
"Along of that there measles. Near all the young 'uns in our court has
'em bad."
"Have you had them?"
"I said the young 'uns."
"And William sent the baby to West Kensington to escape infection?"
"Took him, he did."
"Against his wife's wishes?"
"Na-o!"
"You said she was dying for want of the child?"
"Wouldn't she rayther die than have the kid die?"
"Don't speak so heartlessly, child. Why does William not go straight
home from the club? Does he go to West Kensington to see it?"
"'Tain't a hit, it's an 'e. 'Course he do."
"Then he should not. His wife has the first claim on him."
"Ain't you green! It's his missis as wants him to go. Do you think she
could sleep till she knowed how the kid was?"
"But he does not go into the house at West Kensington?"
"Is he soft? Course he don't go in, fear of taking the infection to the
kid. They just holds the kid up at the window to him, so as he can have
a good look. Then he comes home and tells his missis. He sits foot of
the bed and tells."
"And that takes place every night? He can't have much to tell."
"He has just."
"He can only say whether the child is well or ill."
"My! He tells what a difference there is in the kid since he see'd him
last."
"There can be no difference!"
"Go 'long! Ain't a kid always growing? Haven't Mr. Hicking to tell how
the hair is getting darker, and heaps of things beside?"
"Such as what?"
"Like whether he larfed, and if he has her nose, and how as he knowed
him. He tells her them things more'n once."
"And all this time he is sitting at the foot of the bed?"
"'Cept when he holds her hand."
"But when does he get to bed himself?"
"He don't get much. He tells her as he has a sleep at the club."
"He cannot say that."
"Hain't I heard him? But he do go to his bed a bit, and then they both
lies quiet, her pretending she is sleeping so as he can sleep, and him
feared to sleep case he shouldn't wake up to give her the bottle
stuff."
"What does the doctor say about her?"
"He's a good one, the doctor. Sometimes he says she would get better if
she could see the kid through the window."
"Nonsense!"
"And if she was took to the country."
"Then why does not William take her?"
"My! you are green! And if she drank port wines."
"Doesn't she?"
"No; but William he tells her about the gentlemen drinking them."
On the tenth day after my conversation with this unattractive child I
was in my brougham, with the windows up, and I sat back, a paper before
my face lest any one should look in. Naturally I was afraid of being
seen in company of William's wife and Jenny, for men about town are
uncharitable, and, despite the explanation I had ready, might have
charged me with pitying William. As a matter of fact, William was
sending his wife into Surrey to stay with an old nurse of mine, and I
was driving her down because my horses needed an outing. Besides, I was
going that way, at any rate.
I had arranged that the girl Jenny, who was wearing an outrageous
bonnet, should accompany us, because, knowing the greed of her class, I
feared she might blackmail me at the club.
William joined us in the suburbs, bringing the baby with him, as I had
foreseen they would all be occupied with it, and to save me the trouble
of conversing with them. Mrs. Hicking I found too pale and fragile for
a workingman's wife, and I formed a mean opinion of her intelligence
from her pride in the baby, which was a very ordinary one. She created
quite a vulgar scene when it was brought to her, though she had given
me her word not to do so; what irritated me, even more than her tears,
being her ill-bred apology that she "had been 'feared baby wouldn't
know her again." I would have told her they didn't know anyone for
years had I not been afraid of the girl Jenny, who dandled the infant
on her knees and talked to it as if it understood. She kept me on
tenterhooks by asking it offensive questions: such as, "Oo know who
give me that bonnet?" and answering them herself, "It was the pretty
gentleman there," and several times I had to affect sleep because she
announced, "Kiddy wants to kiss the pretty gentleman."
Irksome as all this necessarily was to a man of taste, I suffered even
more when we reached our destination. As we drove through the village
the girl Jenny uttered shrieks of delight at the sight of flowers
growing up the cottage walls, and declared they were "just like
music-'all without the drink license." As my horses required a rest, I
was forced to abandon my intention of dropping these persons at their
lodgings and returning to town at once, and I could not go to the inn
lest I should meet inquisitive acquaintances. Disagreeable
circumstances, therefore, compelled me to take tea with a waiter's
family--close to a window, too, through which I could see the girl
Jenny talking excitedly to villagers, and telling them, I felt certain,
that I had been good to William. I had a desire to go out and put
myself right with those people.
William's long connection with the club should have given him some
manners, but apparently his class cannot take them on, for, though he
knew I regarded his thanks as an insult, he looked them when he was not
speaking them, and hardly had he sat down, by my orders, than he
remembered that I was a member of the club, and jumped up. Nothing is
in worse form than whispering, yet again and again, when he thought I
was not listening, he whispered to Mrs. Hicking, "You don't feel
faint?" or "How are you now?" He was also in extravagant glee because
she ate two cakes (it takes so little to put these people in good
spirits), and when she said she felt like another being already, the
fellow's face charged me with the change. I could not but conclude,
from the way Mrs. Hicking let the baby pound her, that she was stronger
than she had pretended.
I remained longer than was necessary, because I had something to say to
William which I knew he would misunderstand, and so I put off saying
it. But when he announced that it was time for him to return to London,
at which his wife suddenly paled, so that he had to sign to her not to
break down, I delivered the message.
"William," I said, "the head waiter asked me to say that you could take
a fortnight's holiday just now. Your wages will be paid as usual."
Confound them! William had me by the hand, and his wife was in tears
before I could reach the door.
"Is it your doing again, sir?" William cried.
"William!" I said, fiercely.
"We owe everything to you," he insisted. "The port wine----"
"Because I had no room for it in my cellar."
"The money for the nurse in London----"
"Because I objected to being waited on by a man who got no sleep."
"These lodgings----"
"Because I wanted to do something for my old nurse."
"And, now, sir, a fortnight's holiday!"
"Good-by, William!" I said, in a fury.
But before I could get away, Mrs. Hicking signed to William to leave
the room, and then she kissed my hand. She said something to me. It was
about my wife. Somehow I---- What business had William to tell her
about my wife?
They are all back in Drury Lane now, and William tells me that his wife
sings at her work just as she did eight years ago. I have no interest
in this, and try to check his talk of it; but such people have no sense
of propriety, and he even speaks of the girl Jenny, who sent me lately
a gaudy pair of worsted gloves worked by her own hand. The meanest
advantage they took of my weakness, however, was in calling their baby
after me. I have an uncomfortable suspicion, too, that William has
given the other waiters his version of the affair, but I feel safe so
long as it does not reach the committee.