THE KING OF A LEAN KINGDOM
ARCADIA STREET is noted--locally, at least--for its "gardens." By this
term I would not have you understand that hidden away in that corner
of Islington are bowers of beauty, or that you may stroll at eventide
under the drooping branches of trees, what time the soft scents of
flowers are wafted to your nostrils. Rather let it be said that
attached to each dingy house is a dingy plot of ground that is only a
"garden" by courtesy--a place where the primeval instincts of man have
from time to time urged him to dig in the earth, for the sole reason
that it is earth, and in the mad hope to raise from it something that
no other London garden has yet accomplished. The moon that looks down
on each slip of ground at night knows differently; she has seen the
thing being done for generation after generation, and finally given up
in despair. Also the cats look on tolerantly, because they too know how
it will end, and that the victory will be with them easily in the long
run.
You may look into many such gardens, and may see for yourselves how
bravely they began--with what high hopes. Here, for example, is
what was once intended to be a summer-house; and it has long since
fallen into decay, and become a place where the shabby things that
are not wanted even in a shabby house have been tossed from time to
time, and left to ruin. You will see creepers that started well,
and intended great things, and clung quite bravely to walls; until
the London atmosphere and neglect and one thing and another put an
end to them. And you may see rows and rows of pots, wherein nothing
grows nor ever will grow, and wherein the very earth that fills
them is of a consistency known nowhere else. Here and there, too, a
bit of trellis-work had been put up and painted; in Arcadia gardens
it is generally found to be an easy hanging place for cloths and
doubtful-looking garments.
In the gardens of Arcadia Street was one exception. That exception was
the house, behind the front window of which, the wistful face of a girl
had looked out at Mr. Jordan Tant--that girl about whom he had heard so
much from his friend Gilbert Byfield. The house itself, poor and shabby
though it was, was neat and scrupulously clean; but the real triumph of
it lay in the garden. Not, perhaps, in the artistic sense, but rather
that it was a garden of surprises--a place where it was impossible to
say what you might meet next, if you wandered carefully through its
circumscribed length, and took it seriously.
Yet to anyone to whom the mere name of garden means so much, what a
pitiful place! For there was nothing really garden-like about it; it
was a place of rags and patches and pretences. The few pitiful plants
that struggled out of the black-looking earth here and there seemed
to do so not because they liked it, but because they had a desperate
desire to show what they could do, even against adverse fate, when they
were put to it. Half a dozen things that could not have been named even
by the most careful student in botany stood in pots under the kitchen
window; and in front of these, spread out on the earth itself, was an
old and very ragged carpet--a trap to the unwary, because of the many
holes it contained and the uneven surface it presented on the uneven
ground.
With the idea of hiding the carpet as much as possible, and at the same
time of giving an air of luxury to the place, an ancient staggering
table on three legs had been placed in the centre of it; and on
either side of this table a chair, long since set aside as being too
deplorable even for use in that house. It was a very mockery of a
table, and the chairs were in a dreadful conspiracy with it to let down
any unwary mortal who should attempt to sit upon them in their old age,
unless he treated them with due caution and respect.
Nor was this all; the garden held other treasures. Another ancient
strip of carpet, as ragged as its fellow, had been hung against a wall
to form a species of background to a crazy box that stood against that
wall. Not that you would ever have called it a box; it had a dingy rug
upon it, and that dingy rug made it, of course, a species of settle or
ottoman--an easy lounging place on summer nights. You had to sit down
carefully upon it, because it had a defective board, which gave way
unexpectedly and might let you through; but with care that was a fault
that might not be noticed. For the rest, the place contained a bulky
old plaster flower-pot, with some seedy-looking moss growing in it, and
with great cracks at the further side from the house.
The kindly darkness was hiding the tawdriness of the place when a
little door at the end of the garden opened, and a little man came
in. A man shabby like all the place; with an old frock-coat much too
large for him hanging in scarecrow fashion from his thin shoulders,
with trousers much too long for him lapping over carpet slippers frayed
and worn, and with an old velvet smoking-cap, with three strands of
frayed silk to represent a tassel, stuck on one side of his head. A
melancholy-looking little man, with a certain fierce sullenness upon
him, as though he quarrelled perpetually with the world at large. He
slammed the gate, and advanced into that sorry garden; made as if to
kick the unwieldy cracked flower-pot, but thought better of it; and
went shambling towards the table set upon the ragged carpet.
The fact that he caught his foot in a hole in the carpet, and almost
precipitated himself over the table, did not improve his temper. He
glared savagely about him, and gave his head a fierce rub with his cap
before seating himself gingerly on one of the chairs. Having done so,
he pulled his frock-coat closer about him, and shivered in the warm and
stifling air.
"It's a conspiracy--that's what it is!" exclaimed the little man. "It's
an infernal conspiracy against me from first to last!"
The shadows were lengthening in the garden, and the little man was
rather a pathetic figure as he sat there, solemnly shaking his head
and muttering to himself. Someone who had come to the back door of
the house, and looked out upon him, hesitated for a moment, and then
stepped quickly out towards him. A young girl with a bright, eager,
thin face; the girl who had looked through the window at Mr. Jordan
Tant. She came quickly towards the man, and dropped her arm round his
shoulders, and whispered to him.
"Father--you're home quite early," she said. "Will you have your coffee
out here?"
He shook himself peevishly away from her embrace. "Coffee?" he
exclaimed. "Who the devil wants coffee, Bessie? A man wants something
stronger than coffee. Besides--what's the good of making a fuss about
my being home as early as this? You don't suppose I should have come
home but for a very good reason--do you?"
The girl winced a little, and drew away from him. "I thought perhaps
for once you were glad to come home, father," she said timidly. "And
you know I always like to think of us sitting out in the garden--under
the stars--and drinking our coffee. The best people do that every night
of their lives--after dinner."
"After dinner!" he reminded her, raising a finger, and shaking it at
her. "That makes all the difference in the world; I dare say anyone
might drink the stuff after a good dinner--just to oblige a friend. But
what is anyone to do--in what condition of mind do you imagine a man to
be--when his dinner has been a thing not of the stalled ox order--but
of herbs? Besides--I'm upset--annoyed."
"I'm sorry, father," said the girl softly. She tiptoed into the house,
and softly called to someone within; came out again, and sat down at
the further side of the table, folding her hands upon it, and looking
at the shabby figure of the man on the other side of it.
"What has gone wrong, dear?" she whispered; and at the question he
suddenly turned upon her, and opened the very floodgates of his wrath
and misery.
"Turned out--ejected--thrust to the door with gibes and laughter!" he
exclaimed. "For how many years have I not, in a sense, been the very
prop and stay of that place--its chief ornament--the one being who in
an impoverished and sordid neighbourhood has shed upon it the light of
what I may term real intellect. I ask you, Bessie--for how many years?"
"For more years than I can remember, father," whispered the girl,
turning away her head.
"Exactly," he responded triumphantly. "It has been to me not a mere
house of refreshment--but a club--a place in which, by virtue of long
usage, I had a species of proprietary right. They'll find their mistake
out, of course; they're bound to do that in time. The Arcadia Arms
without me degenerates into a mere low public-house--a pot-house; I had
succeeded in raising the place. I was a feature--almost an institution.
And now a vulgar creature--without a coat, mark you, Bessie!--points
to the door, and says that I'm not to be served again. Some talk of a
score--of a paltry sum that should have been paid long since."
There was silence between them for a minute; it seemed as if, in the
gathering darkness, the petty record of the years was being told over
between them--so much to this account, and so much to that. The man in
the shabby frock-coat seemed to shrink and dwindle--to fall away from
what he would have appeared in her eyes, and to be the mean thing he
really was. When presently he went on with his tale, it was as though
he sought for excuses for himself, and blamed her in so doing.
"That place was in a sense my last refuge; I held a position there I
hold nowhere else now. When the cares of the world pressed upon me
more than usual, I was able to turn there; I had my seat in a special
corner--and I was respected. It was known always and everywhere as
'Mr. Meggison's place'; and only once in all the years has it been
usurped--and then the man was drunk. He was very properly turned out at
once, of course, and made to understand the enormity of his offence.
And now--now, Bessie"--he turned to the girl, and feebly smote the
crazy table with his fist--"now they tell me I am not to go there
again--they turn me out; I heard them laugh when the door banged behind
me. Oh--a bitter world--a very bitter world, Bessie!"
In all that he said she knew that there was an implied reproach for
herself. For if Bessie Meggison had but passed into his hands certain
shillings, this might never have happened; he might still have held
up his head at the Arcadia Arms--still have filled his old seat in a
corner--still have called like a man for his glass to be filled. In
that Bessie had failed; and she knew it now.
"We have had a hard time, father," she said, dropping a light hand on
the fist with which he was beating the table. "People don't come and
take the lodgings as they used to do; the things are getting so poor
and shabby that perhaps the more fashionable young men don't like it. I
try hard, father--but every shilling seems to be so important."
"My dear Bessie, I am not aware that I have blamed you," he said a
little coldly, as he withdrew his hand and turned away his head. "Time
was when Fortune smiled upon me, and I was able to do work that brought
in money; that time is long since past. In a fashion, I may be said to
have retired; I am no longer actively engaged in commercial pursuits."
"No, father--of course not," responded the girl cheerfully.
"And you have often assured me that you are glad--and proud--glad and
proud to be able to assist my declining years. It is not much that I
want: I saunter out in the sun in the morning, and go down to my--my
club----"
"The Arcadia Arms, father," she said gently.
"I prefer to call it my club," he said, a little testily. "There I nod
to an acquaintance or two--and I have my modest glass, and perhaps
smoke a pipe, or even a mild cigar. In the afternoon, a stroll and
perhaps another modest glass; in the evening a few more people gather
there, and we are almost convivial. That's my programme; that's my
day. For the rest, as you're aware, I occupy the cheapest bed in
the house--and I don't eat much. Therefore I do urge," he concluded
fretfully, "that it is a shame that a man should be deprived of the
little thing that gives him so much pleasure. I have been wounded
to-night--sorely hurt and wounded, Bessie."
"The coffee will be here directly, father," said the girl.
"Coffee--served in cracked cups by a dingy maid--in a back-yard," he
cried viciously. "There's nothing soothing or helpful or restful about
coffee--and I'm too old to pretend that this place is anything but the
back-yard it really is."
"It's better than any other garden in Arcadia Street," she said. "And
at a time like this, when--when you don't see things so distinctly--it
looks quite good. If you shut your eyes the least little bit, so that
you can only just see out of them, you seem to be looking down long
spaces--ever so far; and you can sit there under the wall, and think
you're anywhere--anywhere in the world except in Arcadia Street."
"I have shut my eyes to a great many things far too long, Bessie," he
exclaimed fiercely. "I have been inclined to forget at times who I
really am, and the position I should have occupied. I let my children
do as they like with me. Where, for instance, is your brother to-night?"
"Aubrey always goes out in the evening," said the girl quickly. "He
likes his freedom, you know, father dear."
"I know his freedom," said the man; "the freedom of every low billiard
saloon in the neighbourhood. No intellect about him, mind you; no
discussing of matters of moment concerning the neighbourhood, and even
the nation, with Aubrey. Oh dear, no; the knocking about of billiard
balls is more in his line. Aubrey will never cut a figure in any resort
of gentlemen. How much, for instance, did your precious brother receive
out of the funds of the house--my house, mark you! How much did he
receive this day?"
"Aubrey had half a crown," said the girl, in a mere whisper.
"Ye gods!" he exclaimed, starting to his feet. "He flaunts it with half
a crown all over London, and his poor old father is shown the door in
a pot-house, because he can't pay his score. Bessie, I could not have
believed that you would sink so low!"
"Aubrey says that he must live," said the girl wistfully. "And he likes
always to feel that he is a gentleman."
"Why doesn't he work?" exclaimed Mr. Meggison savagely. "He is young
and strong--why should he borrow half-crowns; why doesn't he earn 'em
instead? Things have come to a pretty pass when I--Daniel Meggison--am
refused necessary refreshment in order that my son should flaunt it on
half-crowns. Bah!"
"Somebody seems to be talkin' about me," said a voice from the doorway
of the house. "What's the row?"
The youth who sauntered out, and stood with his hands in his pockets,
looking from one to the other, was not of an inviting type. Shiftless
son of a shiftless father, he lacked even that father's poor dignity,
and failed to carry himself so well as the older man. He stooped at
the shoulders, and his mean and narrow face was thrust forward, and
bore an expression of knowingness, as though he asserted that there was
precious little in this world you could teach him. A small billycock
hat was thrust on the back of his head, and from between his lips
drooped a cigarette; it was his proud boast that he was never to be
seen without the latter.
"The row is this," exclaimed the old man, "that I want to know when you
are going to take your proper position in the world--and do your proper
work?"
"Don't you worry about me, dad," replied the son; "I shall be there all
right when the work comes along. Always provided, mind you," he added
as an afterthought, "always provided that the work suits me, and is of
a sort that a gentleman can take up. No hole-and-corner jobs for me; I
know what I want, and I mean to get it."
"You have already obtained from your sister here to-day a sum of money
far in advance of your needs or your deserts," said old Meggison,
wagging his head at him. "Pray what do you want with half-crowns?"
"Father--you shall have all the money you want as soon as I get any
myself," pleaded the girl in a low voice. "Surely there is no need for
quarrelling."
"I am not quarrelling; my dignity does not permit me to quarrel," said
Daniel Meggison, shaking his arm free of her touch. "But I trust that I
know what is due to me as that boy's father; I hope I know my duty."
"Hope so, dad, I'm sure," said the youth, as he turned away. "Can't
see for the life of me what you're upset about. You've had your bit at
times; you've been kept going, same as I have--haven't you?"
"My 'bit,' as you term it, is what is justly due to me as the head of
this house," exclaimed the elder man.
"I wasn't aware that you were the head of the house," said the youth.
"If it comes to that, Bess is the only one that does anything for what
I'm pleased to call a rotten family. I'm not saying, mind you, that
she does what she might, or that she looks up the lodgers for what's
due with that business instinct she should; I'm only sayin' that she
does what a mere girl can do tolerably well. More than that, she knows
that her brother, bein' a gentleman, can't go about London with empty
pockets."
"What about my pockets?" demanded Daniel Meggison, plunging his hands
into them. "Who thinks of my wants--my simple ordinary little wants?
Who deems it necessary even to know that I have that refreshment that
is not denied to the lowest of the beasts?"
"The lowest of the beasts drink water," said Aubrey, with a chuckle.
"And I never heard of you doin' that."
While Bessie stood looking helplessly from one to the other, and while
a savage retort rose to the lips of old Meggison, the door leading from
the house was opened, and a little servant-maid appeared. A precise and
prim little maid, who, having come from some institution but a little
time before, had felt ever since that she was seeing life as she had
never hoped to see it; to her, indeed, the sorry garden was a place of
delight. She came out now almost with eagerness, bringing that despised
coffee on a battered tray, and set it on the rickety table. And at the
same time announced some startling news.
"Oh, if you please, miss, a gent an' a lidy--name o' Stocker--was
waitin' in the passage----"
"Hall!" thundered Mr. Daniel Meggison, so savagely that the child
almost knocked over the coffee-pot. "How many times, Bessie, have I
told you that the domestics are to be instructed to give proper names
to the apartments in the house."
"You will be more careful in future, Amelia, won't you?" suggested
Bessie mildly. She turned to her father, and spoke wistfully. "Perhaps
Aunt Julia and Uncle Ted had better come out here--in the garden," she
suggested.
"I will not see them," said Mr. Meggison. "I am in no mood to see
anyone; I should probably insult my sister, to begin with. I dislike
her as much as I dislike her absurd prosperity."
"Don't ask me to meet 'em," said Aubrey, making for the little gate in
the wall. "Aunt Julia always asks a chap what he's doin'--as though
earnin' your livin' was about the only blessed thing you'd got to do in
this world."
"I'd be glad if you'd stop and see them, Aubrey," pleaded Bessie; then
to her father she added slyly--"It will be so much more dignified if
you stop and meet them, father."
"Perhaps it will; I will put up with them on your account, my child,"
said Mr. Meggison. "Aubrey--I command you to stay."
"Your commands don't affect me the least little bit," said Aubrey
coolly, shifting his cigarette to the other corner of his mouth. "But
on Bessie's account I don't mind lettin' myself be seen. Amelia--trot
'em out!"
Bessie Meggison having some idea of how these things should be done,
from certain accounts she had read, or from certain things she had
heard, immediately got behind the crazy table, the better to preside
over that pouring out of coffee. She bravely shut her eyes to the fact
that the cups did not match, and that the saucers were either too large
or too small, or that the coffee-pot was a mere tin affair, blackened
all up one side from contact with the fire. She waited in that proud
position the coming of the unexpected guests.
Mrs. Stocker came first, looking about her with the high dignity of
one who moves in a very different sphere, and who has condescended
for once, in a spirit of Christian virtue, to step down among beings
less fortunate. She was a large lady, holding herself very erect; the
sort of person with whom you could not under any circumstances have
cracked a jest. Life was a simple and a respectable thing with her; a
serious matter, that could but lead in due course to a very proper and
becomingly elaborate funeral. Women had been known to do remarkable
things, and to get their names into books and newspapers; not so Julia
Stocker. "From the moment Edward Stocker claimed my hand, I knew
exactly what was going to happen to me, and I acted accordingly," was
her invariable summary of the course of her life. Incidentally it may
be mentioned that Mr. Edward Stocker had "a little property" and that
Mrs. Stocker looked after it. Which is to say that Mr. Stocker was a
mild good-tempered little man, with a partiality for convivial good
company into which he rarely got.
The lady came out of the house now, looking about her somewhat
disdainfully. She took Bessie's outstretched hand, and, still with her
eyes searching the bare and shabby yard, touched the girl's cheek for
a moment with lips that had no softness about them; performed the same
ceremony with her brother Daniel; and stared at Aubrey Meggison. "I
have come, brother," she said, in a voice that was in itself almost
dirge-like, "to see how you are getting on."
"Very kind of you--but I'm not getting on at all," said Meggison,
furtively rubbing the place on his cheek where her lips had been with
his knuckles. "More than that, I don't expect to."
"Perhaps I should have said that _we_ have come--Edward and myself--to
inquire about you; for of course without Edward I never attempt to
do anything. In my opinion the woman should always be dependent upon
the man, and guided by him. Consequently, if Edward tells me that he
desires that I should call and inquire about my relatives, I do so,
however distasteful it may be to me personally. Edward--where are you?"
Mr. Stocker came from the house at that moment, holding his hat in his
hand, and looking about him as though he felt he was in some place of
historic interest. He saw Bessie's hand, and after looking at it for
a moment or two, as though not quite certain what it was, or how it
concerned him, decided to grasp it; and having done so looked up at
the girl, and smiled in rather a pleased way. But he dropped the hand
guiltily on hearing his wife's voice.
"Edward!--why are you loitering? Where are you?"
"Here, my dear," said Mr. Stocker, coming round the table, and still
looking about him as though marvelling at the place in which he found
himself. "Charming spot, this!"
"Charming fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Mrs. Stocker, sitting carefully on a
chair. "A mere back-yard--with nothing in it but rags and rubbish and
draughts. Surely you people don't live out here?" she asked, glaring
round upon them.
"We like to come here in the evening, aunt; it's very pleasant then,"
said Bessie. "Will you have some coffee, Aunt Julia?"
"No, I will not have some coffee--especially in the open air," said
Mrs. Stocker. "Nor will your uncle Edward have coffee," she added,
noting a tendency on the part of that gentleman to reach for one of the
cups; "it always disagrees with him. Not, of course, that I would wish
for a moment to interfere with your enjoyment, Edward--but I think I
know what is best for you."
Mr. Stocker sighed and turned away; found his way up to that improvised
seat against the wall; and, with that luck that usually attends such
men, discovered the loose board and almost went through; he was
frantically readjusting his balance when Daniel Meggison, as though
by the merest chance, strolled up to him and dropped a hand on his
shoulder, and smiled in a friendly way.
"Glad to see you, Ted--always glad to see you," he said, keeping a wary
eye upon Mrs. Stocker the while, and lowering his voice suddenly and
dramatically. "You don't happen to have change for half a sovereign, I
suppose?"
Mr. Stocker slipped his hand into his pocket, and brought out a small
gold coin. "I don't think I have," he began in a whisper; and then
discovered, something to his amazement, that by a species of conjuring
trick the coin had disappeared from his hand and was entering the
pocket of Mr. Daniel Meggison, who was beaming upon him.
"It doesn't matter--one coin's easier to remember," said Meggison. "You
shall have it back--certainly within a week. You're a man to know, sir."
Mrs. Stocker was speaking in her loud and strident tones. "I should not
be doing that duty that is imposed upon me by the mere fact of being
a woman and a Stocker, did I not speak my mind. I come here, and I
find you all drifting on in exactly the same way that you have always
done--in a shabby and shiftless manner, that seems to belong to you
and Arcadia Street. Don't interrupt me; there is only one being on this
earth that has a right to interrupt me--and he dare not do it." She
glared round upon Mr. Stocker as she spoke.
"We are very happy, Aunt Julia," said Bessie, who was delicately
sipping some of the half-cold stuff known to Amelia as coffee. "Father
has been a little unfortunate over the matter of finding employment."
"A misfortune that has dogged him nearly all his life," snapped Mrs.
Stocker. "In what direction are you looking, brother?"
"In all directions, my dear Julia," said Meggison, in a jubilant
tone that sprang from the fact that he had unexpected money in his
pocket. "I may be said to say to the world--'Give me work; help me to
discover work; give me some hard task, with appropriate pay attached to
it--and then see what I'll do!' I appeal to Bessie: am I not for ever
condemning the state of the labour market?"
"I have heard you speak of it often, father," said the girl.
"And what, for example, is Aubrey doing?" demanded Mrs. Stocker,
turning suddenly on that youth. "What are his prospects?"
"What he's doing at the present time is this," said the youth, opening
the door at the end of the garden--"he's goin' out. And the prospects,
as far as you're concerned, are that you won't see him again this
evenin'. I'm goin' to have a hundred up at the Arcadia Arms. Good
night!"
As he was swinging out of the door Mr. Daniel Meggison seized his arm,
and held him for a moment. "How dare you address a relative in such a
fashion, sir!" he cried. "Above all, how dare you suggest that you will
waste money upon such a pursuit. Your aunt is right; you should by this
time have decided what work you will seize upon in the world. There are
many maxims I might employ in such a case as yours--but I----"
"I wouldn't trouble, if I was you," said Aubrey, shaking himself free.
"As I've said before, I'm ready for anything in the way of work, if I
can only see it before me, and know what I've got to look forward to.
If it isn't there, don't blame me."
He went out of the door, slamming it behind him; his father, in a
sudden access of virtue, pulled open the door, and called after him
down the narrow alley which ran at the back of the houses--"Understand,
I will not permit you to frequent any such place as the Arcadia Arms--a
mere ordinary pot-house----"
His voice died away, and he contented himself by shaking a fist in the
direction of the retreating youth. He slammed the door, and turned
again to his sister.
"I think that I shall be compelled to go out myself, Julia," he said,
while his fingers lovingly caressed that small gold coin in his pocket.
"I must really look in at my club."
"Club? I didn't know you had one," said the lady, rising. "However, we
won't detain you; so soon as I know that Edward commands me to return
home I shall be quite willing to leave Arcadia Street."
Mr. Daniel Meggison took the hint at once, and hurried into the house;
a minute or two later he might have been observed shuffling down the
street in the direction of the Arcadia Arms, having exchanged his
smoking-cap for a grimy grey felt that was stuck jauntily on the side
of his head. Mrs. Stocker, having brought Mr. Stocker to his feet
by the simple expedient of turning to look at him, shook hands with
Bessie, and gave that young lady at parting a few words of much-needed
advice.
"Call things by their right names, my child," she said sternly. "A
garden's a garden--and a yard's a yard; this is a yard, and an untidy
one at that. Don't pretend; when you haven't got enough to eat, don't
eke it out with coffee badly served that nobody wants. Come out of your
dreams, and wake up to the realities of life. Don't forget, whenever
you feel inclined to think that you are any better off than you really
are, or have anything to be grateful for, that you're a mere ordinary
commonplace girl--or woman, if you like it better--and that your
mission in life is to slave from morning to night for people that don't
care a button about you. My advice to you is: clear away this rubbish,
and keep chickens or something of that sort. Good night."
It is probable that Mr. Stocker would have said something more
cheering, but for the fact that at the very moment he had grasped
Bessie's hand Mrs. Stocker looked back from the doorway, and called to
him; he departed hurriedly and obediently. The girl looked at the sorry
array of cups and saucers, and then at the poor wilderness about her;
all in a moment it seemed poor and mean and childish. She sank down on
to that box that was covered by the dingy old rug, and covered her
face with her hands.
The shadows were falling all about her, and the Princess next door, as
Gilbert Byfield had called her, was crying softly to herself.