FAREWELL TO ARCADIA STREET
THE morning which followed that night of wild exaggerations found Mr.
Daniel Meggison in a despairing mood. He knew that he had gone too
far--understood that he had plunged not only himself but others into
this new sea of deceit in which they must all struggle together, and
from which only one hand--that of Mr. Gilbert Byfield--could drag them.
In the calmer mood following upon a severe headache, and a petulant
remembrance of certain absurd statements of the night before, Meggison
saw that he must substantiate much of what had been said at the
earliest possible opportunity. Bessie believed in him, and Bessie would
require to be satisfied; if even that considerable sum of fifty pounds
was to be wrung out of the matter, the game must be kept alive, for a
few days at least.
In a sense, however, Bessie had taken the matter out of his hands. Her
belief in him was so sublime and so fine that she had absolutely taken
him at his word; and that morning the one or two lodgers who only paid
when they were driven to it, and the one or two others who paid when by
chance they had any money, had special interviews with a radiant girl
in a shabby black frock, who told them with shining eyes that she was
sorry to get rid of them, and that the bills did not matter. The house
was to be given up; they were retiring to the country. So the lodgers
went away puzzled, thereafter to make arrangements for other lodgings,
where it was to be feared they might not find landladies who would deal
with them so generously.
Two lodgers were difficult to deal with: poor Harry Dorricott for
one, and Simon Quarle for another. It was hard to turn Harry out into
the world--harder still to make him understand that in one night his
divinity had been removed far out of his reach. He did not understand
in the least; he pleaded that he might have the new address, so that
in time to come he could forward his long overdue account. For the
rest, she cut short as delicately as she could his farewells and his
protestations.
It was not so easy to get rid of Mr. Simon Quarle. Mr. Simon Quarle
usually breakfasted late, because there was no business which claimed
him, as in the case of the others; and this morning Bessie came upon
him with a newspaper propped up against the cruet, and with a fork
busily going over a breakfast that had been already cut up for greater
expedition in eating. He looked up at her quickly as she came into the
room, and then frowningly resumed his breakfast and his newspaper;
which was in a sense his habit.
"If you please, Mr. Quarle--if I might speak to you," she began.
"Which is exactly what you're doing, you know," he retorted, not
unkindly.
"I thought I should like to know when it would be suitable to you to
go, Mr. Quarle."
He laid down his fork very slowly, and looked up at her; picked up the
fork again, and resumed his breakfast. "Don't talk nonsense, Bessie,"
he said.
"But, indeed, Mr. Quarle, I mean it," she urged. "The house is going to
be sold up--and all the lodgers are going. Of course I'm very sorry----"
"And pray what's the execution for this time?" he demanded, laying down
his fork finally with a sigh, and leaning back in his chair. "And how
much is it?"
"You won't understand," she exclaimed, taking a seat at the further
side of the table, and resting her chin on her folded hands, and
smiling across at him. "You've been so very good to me always, Mr.
Quarle, that I thought you'd be glad."
"Glad! Because once again you're in difficulties?"
"But we're not; it's quite the other way about," she exclaimed. "We're
only getting rid of this place--and the lodgers--and you--because
father has come into a lot of money, and is taking me down into the
country."
"Your father has come into a lot of money?" The man burst into a laugh,
and picked up his fork again. "Who's told him so?"
"Mr. Quarle--you are really most unkind," she said. "Father is much
more clever than anyone has ever imagined; he has speculated and made
money, while we have all thought that he has merely been living the
life of a--a gentleman--and doing nothing. Ask him yourself if you're
not sure."
"I will," said Quarle grimly.
"And will you please tell me when it will be convenient for you to go?"
she asked again. "Oh, please don't think that I'm anxious to get rid of
you; I'd like to keep you here for ever and ever; but of course I have
to remember that things are so different--and that father and Aubrey
must be considered. I'm sure you understand that."
Simon Quarle slowly laid down his fork for the last time, and pushed
his plate away from him. "Come here," he said gruffly.
She got up, and came round the table, and stood close to him; he took
one of the hands that was a little coarsened with work, and gently held
it while he spoke to her; and his voice was altogether changed.
"When I came here first you were a bit of a girl in short
frocks--shorter even than they are now--and I was sorry for you. I
could have gone to other lodgings----"
"I'm glad you didn't, Mr. Quarle," she whispered.
"But I didn't. I came here because I liked the look of you, and I
thought my bit of money might be useful. There was no woman in the
world that was anything to me--and I had no chicks--no one who cared a
button about me. I saw you grow up--and you didn't grow up half badly;
and I suppose because I'm an old fool, I'm fond of you."
"I know," she said softly.
"Consequently, I don't want any tricks to be played, or any infernal
nonsense to come into your life and to upset it. I'm not going to say
anything about family matters, because I suppose after all a father's
a father, no matter what color he is. Only I'm a business man, little
Bessie, and we must know that everything is fair and square and
straight. Do you understand?"
"Yes, of course I understand; only I think none of us quite know what
father is capable of," she responded.
"There I agree with you," he retorted grimly. "And I'll talk about
going when I've had a chance to inquire into the matter. Don't turn me
out before it's necessary; it happens that I'm rather a lonely man."
"You'll be able to come down and see us as often as you like--to stay
with us," she reminded him; but to that he made no answer.
That arch-plotter Daniel Meggison had been spending an anxious hour or
two in search of his patron. Inquiry at the front of the house next
door elicited the information that Mr. Gilbert Byfield was having his
bath; the landlady a little contemptuous concerning a man who found it
necessary to wash all over every day. An impromptu peep over the wall
at the back was equally useless. The only occupation left to Daniel
Meggison was to saunter about the house, and to carry things with a
high hand, and yet with a failing courage.
His man might escape at any moment, and go out into that world outside
Arcadia Street, and never come back. The people with whom hitherto
Daniel had had dealings were in the habit of repudiating a promise at a
day or even an hour's notice; it was quite on the cards that this young
man would do the same. Daniel Meggison began to wish that he had in
some fashion got the thing reduced to writing; more than that, he began
to doubt the actual value of that asset on which he had counted--his
daughter. Therefore Simon Quarle, coming upon him unexpectedly, and
thrusting his head out at him in characteristic fashion, found the man
in no mood for questions.
"It's all right," said Meggison, with a very distinct air of its being
all wrong. "I have been lucky--fortunate; I have kept my eyes open."
"How much have you made?" demanded Quarle stolidly. "Always better to
come to figures, you know."
"It doesn't concern you--and I am inclined to keep my particular
figures to myself," snapped Daniel Meggison. "Suffice it that this
system of living is ceasing; suffice it that I no longer find it
necessary to depend for my income upon lodgers whose payments are not
what they should be, and whose manners do not please me."
"Keep your temper, Meggison; there's nothing that should call for
personal remarks. If you didn't like my manners you could have got rid
of me years ago--always supposing, of course, that it suited me to go.
Meantime, we're no nearer to this mysterious fortune--are we? Exactly
in what particular investments were you so very lucky?"
"The investments were--were various," said Daniel Meggison, with a wave
of the hand. "A little bit in this--and a little bit in that; it's
taken quite a long time--but it's growing even now."
"Wonderful!" said Simon Quarle, nodding his head slowly. "Most
remarkable. And so you sell up everything here--and you start for the
country--eh? House cost much?"
"I have merely--merely rented it--hired it for a period," said Meggison.
"What I shall do with you," said Quarle, with a bullying shake of
his head at him, "will be to keep my eye on you. You've been doing
something mysterious--something you don't want talked about; I shall
find out presently what it is. You never were any good, you know--and
you never will be. Don't wave your arms about, and don't splutter at
me; bluster is the last dog that will frighten me. So far as you're
concerned I don't care a snap of the fingers--but I do care about the
girl."
"Sir--you are not the only one who cares about the girl," retorted
Daniel Meggison. "It is for her sake that I have done this; it is on
her account alone that I propose burying myself in the country, and
having what will probably prove a devilish dull time of it. I decline
to answer any further questions; it is no affair of yours."
He went away again on that hunt for Byfield; with the creeping on
of the hours his courage had fallen more and more. He had burnt his
boats, in the sense that even his daughter now was ranged against him
in that mad business of giving up what had, at the best and the worst,
been a livelihood for them all. He had hoped that she would have been
content to take her cue from him, and to march a little behind his
stride; he was appalled, now that he came to look at the thing from a
common-sense point of view, to see that she was bringing to bear upon
this new situation the characteristic energy that had helped her in
the old one. He had forced her to be self-reliant in the past; that
self-reliance now might well prove the undoing of them all.
He was returning from a hurried visit to the Arcadia Arms when he
met Gilbert Byfield in the street. He essayed a rather nervous "Good
morning, Mr. Byfield, sir"; but it halted on his tongue as Byfield
frowningly took him by the arm, and turned him round, and walked with
him up the street. Without a word that young man conducted him to the
door of that house in which he had taken a lodging; took him upstairs;
and having got him into the room where the desk littered with papers
stood, thrust him unceremoniously into a chair, and looked at him
sternly over folded arms.
"Now, Mr. Daniel Meggison--let me know what the game is," said Gilbert.
"Game, Mr. Byfield, sir?" asked Daniel innocently. "I'm sure, so far
as I'm concerned, there ain't any game; if I've been a bit playful in
mentioning matters--a joke's a joke--and I----"
"There is no joke about this, Meggison," broke in Gilbert. "I want you
to understand from the beginning that this is to be merely a holiday
for the girl; whatever innocent lie you tell must not go beyond that.
My cottage at Fiddler's Green is at your disposal for a few weeks; and
that will be the end of it."
"Have I said different?" pleaded Daniel passionately. "A bit of money
was what I've come into, and no more than that. I'll own that last
night, Mr. Byfield, sir, I was excited--exhilarated--perhaps a little
unduly happy. Mine has been a hard life, and if I may be said to have
looked upon the rosy wine in a joyful moment, is that always to be
thrown up in my face for ever after? Is there to be no charity extended
to me?"
"Last night you led your daughter to believe that this was no mere
matter of a little sudden money to provide her with a holiday--but
something in the nature of a fortune, that should mean ease and
contentment for the rest of her days."
"A playful exaggeration; she perfectly understands this morning," said
Daniel. "She knows her poor old father; she will take the thing in the
right spirit, and be grateful. I am a man of imagination, Mr. Byfield,
sir; I can assure you that a very ordinary duck with me may quite
easily and legitimately become a swan."
"Well--so that you have explained it, I suppose it's all right," said
Byfield slowly. "Only for her sake you must be careful."
"Careful, Mr. Byfield, sir?" exclaimed Daniel fervently. "From
this moment I will be more than discreet. I was careless last
night--reckless--unpardonably reckless. It shall not occur again; I'm
annoyed with myself."
"Well--we'll say no more about it," said Gilbert, a little sorry and
ashamed that he should have been so hard on anyone so abject. "Get
her away to Fiddler's Green as soon as possible; I'll arrange that
the house shall be ready, and that servants shall be there to look
after you. There's a housekeeper and others there, and they shall be
instructed that for the time being you are master, and that they take
their orders from you."
"That will be highly satisfactory," said Daniel, cheering up
wonderfully at the thought of the new importance that was to be his.
"But if you will pardon my suggesting such a thing--there is a little
matter of ready money----"
"Oh, you shall have ready money," said Gilbert impatiently. "There will
be certain things to be bought--certain expenses to be paid. I suggest
that you should be at Fiddler's Green for the next month or six weeks.
You will, I suppose, get someone to look after the place--your own
house I mean--in your absence?"
"I can quite safely leave that to my daughter," said Daniel, with a
sort of cold shudder going through him at the remembrance of what
had already been done in regard to the house. "She will provide for
everything, as she has always done. A most reliable good girl, Mr.
Byfield, sir."
The little man was so quiet now, and so humble and grateful, that
Gilbert had no hesitation in sitting down to write a cheque for a
certain sum to meet initial expenses. In the very act of writing it he
looked up, and spoke to the waiting Daniel Meggison; he was petulantly
anxious that his own point of view should be understood.
"You will understand, of course, Meggison, that I do this very
willingly and very cheerfully--just as I might do something to
help some poor child that could not help herself. For she _is_ a
child--isn't she?"
"A mere babe, sir, in the ways of the world--a toddler, who should
never have left her mother's knee," replied Meggison sentimentally.
"Had she been, of course, anything else I should never for an instant
have consented to this." He was carefully folding the cheque as he
spoke, and was making rapid calculations in his own mind.
"One other point, Meggison. It is possible that your daughter might
suspect that I had had something to do with the matter; I believe she
thinks that I am a little richer than the people she generally meets.
Therefore to avoid that, I have made up my mind to go away for a week,
so that she may not in any way connect me with what is being done. You
seem to have told your tale well--rather too well, if anything--and she
believes you; when you come back here you will find me perhaps in this
place again, quite in the ordinary way. So far as money is concerned,
you will find your credit good at Fiddler's Green, and my housekeeper
will order what is necessary for you. More than that, I will keep in
touch with you, and will let you have what other ready money you may
want. But no more talk of fortunes, Meggison, if you please."
"Certainly not, Mr. Byfield, sir; that was an indiscretion. I shall
have a month or six weeks in which to explain to Bessie that I cannot
go on beyond a certain time; she will understand perfectly. As for your
notion about going away--I applaud it, sir. Splendid notion!"
"I'm glad you approve," said Gilbert dryly. "I will write down here
exactly what you're to do to get to the house, so that you may in
your daughter's eyes appear to be already familiar with it; and you
will understand that to all intents and purposes you will be master
there so long as you are in it. No one will question your right to be
there--and no one will interfere with you."
Thus it happened, in the little drama that was afterwards to be played
out so strangely, that Gilbert Byfield, the better to preserve his
secret, left his lodging, and went back into the more seemly world that
knew him; while Daniel Meggison, knowing that the coast was clear, set
his hand boldly to the work he had to do, and burnt what boats were
left to him with a gay good will.
The cheque was cashed; and from that moment, with money in his pocket
and apparently unlimited credit for the first time in his life, Mr.
Daniel Meggison flung caution to the winds, and hurled himself with
zest into the new life that was opening before him. Arcadia Street
was shaken to its very foundations at finding that the Meggisons
were leaving--that the Meggisons were arraying themselves in new
clothing, that the Meggisons had turned their lodgers adrift, and
that the Meggisons actually had money to spend. Arcadia Street heard
rumours, and flung them further out into Islington, and even onward
into Highbury and other districts. If you wanted a quick word for
lucky or fortunate or anything of that sort, you simply said, "What
price Meggison?" and clicked your tongue; and so became in a moment
wonderfully expressive.
Bessie, for her part, had set about the business, if not exactly with
caution, at least with some forethought. The respectable part of the
furniture fetched a good price; a landlord who had long given up hope
compromised matters, and went away congratulating himself on having
got anything at all. Everyone suggested that the Meggisons might have
behaved better, but that on the other hand they might have behaved
worse. So that in the long run most people were satisfied; while quite
a number suggested that, after all, if any luck was coming to Arcadia
Street, Mr. Meggison--always quite the gentleman, mind you!--was the
man who should properly have it.
There came that tumultuous moment when the bare and empty house was to
be left, and when, with such personal luggage as they had contrived to
cram into several very new trunks, they were about to set out on their
way to Fiddler's Green. Aubrey Meggison, not desiring to be associated
with so public a departure, had casually suggested that he would "turn
up at the station"; Mr. Meggison had gone out hurriedly, with a promise
to be back in a moment; the actual business of leaving was left to
Bessie. The small servant Amelia had drifted away hopelessly back to
that institution from which she had come, there to wait until such time
as another situation should offer itself.
The cab was at the door, and the trunks were piled upon it; and Arcadia
Street had turned out to see the great departure. All the children
of Arcadia Street had long since seized upon points of vantage, and
had taken up positions on the pavement, leaving only a narrow lane,
down which Bessie must presently pass. The elders stood behind, and
suggested with sighs what they would have done if by any chance Dame
Fortune had swooped upon them. By all accounts, it seemed unanimously
resolved that they would have made something of a "splash," though
in what particular water they did not specify. And while they waited,
Bessie had gone through the blank and empty house for a final look at
it--and so out into that poor garden of her dreams.
The garden was stripped now; the box that had formed the ottoman was
naked and broken; the whole place a wilderness. Yet, as she stood in
it for a moment, she seemed to see it as it had been, and as it never
would be again; looked with eyes that were bright with tears at the
familiar shabby place.
"Good-bye--old garden!" she whispered. "You did your best for me--but
you never had a real chance. Yet I have loved you as I shall never love
any other place, however beautiful; because everything that was good
and kind has happened to me here. Good-bye; I hope someone may love you
half as well as I have done!"
So at last she fluttered out of the house, and into the cab, with
a kindly word or two for those that pressed about her; and quite
naturally, as it seemed, told the man to stop at the corner--at the
Arcadia Arms. Someone raised a feeble cheer; and one man, beating time,
amazingly started--"For he's a jolly good fellow"; then the cab rolled
away, with the younger part of Arcadia Street trailing after it.
Outside the Arcadia Arms it waited, with the girl sitting quietly
inside. It having been impressed upon Mr. Daniel Meggison inside
that he was wanted, and that the time had come for farewells, he was
presently prevailed upon to emerge. He appeared surrounded by friends,
with a new silk hat, that had been rubbed in places the wrong way, upon
the back of his head, and a large cigar with the band upon it in a
corner of his mouth, and a little uncertain as to what to do with his
legs. He shook hands with all and sundry, and murmured that he would
never forget them; was helped into the cab by a dozen willing hands;
and left to Arcadia Street the lasting remembrance that they had seen
him, as the cab drove away, burst into tears.
Arcadia Street, having been shaken to its depths, spent what was left
of the day in discussing the matter, and in talking about the Meggisons
in general, and Mr. Daniel Meggison in particular. And quite late at
night there were little knots of people gathered outside the empty
house, still talking of the glory that had fallen upon those who had
departed from it.