Was he to be a grocer for the rest of his life?--This question, which
at first scarcely occurred to him, absorbed as he was in the problem of
money-earning for immediate needs, at length began to press and worry.
Of course he had meant nothing of the kind; his imagination had seen in
the shop a temporary expedient; he had not troubled to pursue the
ultimate probabilities of the life that lay before him, but contented
himself with the vague assurance of his hopeful temper. Yet where was
the way out? To save money, to accumulate sufficient capital for his
release, was an impossibility, at all events within any reasonable
time. And for what windfall could he look? Sherwood's ten thousand
pounds hovered in his memory, but no more substantial than any
fairy-tale. No man living, it seemed to him, had less chance of being
signally favoured by fortune. He had donned his apron and aproned he
must remain.
Suppose, then, he so far succeeded in his business as to make a little
more than the household at St. Neots required; suppose it became
practicable to--well, say, to think of marriage, of course on the most
modest basis; could he quite see himself offering to the girl he chose
the hand and heart of a grocer? He laughed. It was well to laugh;
merriment is the great digestive, and an unspeakable boon to the man
capable of it in all but every situation; but what if _she_ also
laughed, and not in the sympathetic way? Worse still, what if she could
_not_ laugh, but looked wretchedly embarrassed, confused, shamed? That
would be a crisis it needed some philosophy to contemplate.
For the present, common sense made it rigorously plain to him that the
less he thought of these things, the better. He had not a penny to
spare. Only by exercising an economy which in the old days would have
appalled him, could he send his mother and sister an annual sum just
sufficient to their needs. He who scorned and loathed all kinds of
parsimony had learnt to cut down his expenditure at every possible
point. He still smoked his pipe; he bought newspapers; he granted
himself an excursion, of the cheapest, on fine Sundays; but these
surely were necessities of life. In food and clothing and the common
expenses of a civilised man, he pinched remorselessly; there was no
choice. His lodgings cost him very little; but Mrs. Wick, whose
profound suspiciousness was allied with unperfect honesty, now and then
made paltry overcharges in her bill, and he was angry with himself for
his want of courage to resist them. It meant only a shilling or two,
but retail trade had taught him the importance of shillings. He had to
remind himself that, if he was poor, his landlady was poorer still, and
that in cheating him she did but follow the traditions of her class. To
debate an excess of sixpence for paraffin, of ninepence for bacon,
would have made him flush and grind his teeth for hours afterwards; but
he noticed the effect upon himself of the new habit of
niggardliness--how it disposed him to acerbity of temper. No matter how
pure the motive, a man cannot devote his days to squeezing out
pecuniary profits without some moral detriment. Formerly this woman,
Mrs. Wick, with her gimlet eyes, and her leech lips, with her spyings
and eavesdroppings, with her sour civility, her stinted discharge of
obligations, her pilferings and mendacities, would have rather amused
than annoyed him. "Poor creature, isn't it a miserable as well as a
sordid life. Let her have her pickings, however illegitimate, and much
good may they do her." Now he too often found himself regarding her
with something like animosity, whereby, to be sure, he brought himself
to the woman's level. Was it not a struggle between him and her for a
share of life's poorest comforts? When he looked at it in that light,
his cheeks were hot.
A tradesman must harden himself. Why, in the early months, it cost him
a wrench somewhere to take coppers at the counter from very poor folk
who perhaps made up the odd halfpenny in farthings, and looked at the
coins reluctantly as they laid them down. More than once, he said, "Oh
never mind the ha'penny," and was met with a look--not of gratitude but
of blank amazement. Allchin happened to be a witness of one such
incident, and, in the first moment of privacy, ventured a respectful
yet a most energetic, protest. "It's the kindness of your 'eart, sir,
and if anybody knows how much of that you have, I'm sure it's me, and I
ought to be the last to find fault with it. But that'll never do behind
the counter, sir, never! Why, just think. The profit on what that woman
bought was just three farthings." He detailed the computation. "And
there you've been and given her a whole ha'penny, so that you've only
one blessed farthing over on the whole transaction! That ain't
business, sir; that's charity; and Jollyman's ain't a charitable
institution. You really must not, sir. It's unjust to yourself." And
Will, with an uneasy shrug, admitted his folly. But he was ashamed to
the core. Only in the second half-year did he really accustom himself
to disregard a customer's poverty. He had thought the thing out, faced
all its most sordid aspects. Yes, he was fighting with these people for
daily bread; he and his could live only if his three farthings of
profit were plucked out of that toil worn hand of charwoman or
sempstress. Accept the necessity, and think no more of it. He was a man
behind the counter; he saw face to face the people who supported him.
With this exception had not things been just the same when he sat in
the counting-house at the sugar refinery? It was an unpleasant truth,
which appearances had formerly veiled from him.
With the beginning of his second winter came a new anxiety, a new
source of bitter and degrading reflections. At not more than five
minutes' walk away, another grocer started business; happily no great
capitalist, but to all appearances a man of enterprise who knew what he
was about. Morning and evening, Warburton passed the new shop and felt
his very soul turn sour in the thought that he must do what in him lay
to prevent that man from gaining custom; if he could make his business
a failure, destroy all his hopes, so much the better. With Allchin, he
held long and eager conferences. The robust assistant was of course
troubled by no scruples; he warmed to the combat, chuckled over each
good idea for the enemy's defeat; every nerve must be strained for the
great Christmas engagement; as much money as possible must be spent in
making a brave show. And it was only by pausing every now and then to
remember _why_ he stood here, in what cause he was so debasing the
manner of his life, that Warburton could find strength to go through
such a trial of body and of spirit. When, the Christmas fight well
over, with manifest triumph on his side he went down for a couple of
days to St. Neots, once more he had his reward. But the struggle was
telling upon his health; it showed in his face, in his bearing. Mother
and sister spoke uneasily of a change they noticed; surely he was
working too hard; what did he mean by taking no summer holiday? Will
laughed.
"Business, business! A good deal to do at first, you know. Things'll be
smoother next year."
And the comfort, the quiet, the simple contentment of that little house
by the Ouse, sent him back to Fulham Road, once more resigned,
courageous.
Naturally, he sometimes contrasted his own sordid existence with the
unforeseen success which had made such changes in the life of Norbert
Franks. It was more than three months since he and Franks had met,
when, one day early in January, he received a note from the artist.
"What has become of you? I haven't had a chance of getting your
way--work and social foolery. Could you come and lunch with me here, on
Sunday, alone, like the old days? I have a portrait to show you." So on
Sunday, Warburton went to his friend's new studio, which was in the
Holland Park region. Formerly it was always he who played the host, and
he did not like this change of positions; but Franks, however sensible
of his good luck, and inclined at times to take himself rather
seriously, had no touch of the snob in his temper; when with him, Will
generally lost sight of unpleasant things in good-natured amusement.
To-day, however, grocerdom lay heavily on his soul. On the return
journey from St. Neots he had caught a cold, and a week of sore throat
behind the counter--a week too, of quarrel with a wholesale house which
had been cheating him--left his nerves in a bad state. For reply to the
artist's cordial greeting he could only growl inarticulately.
"Out of sorts?" asked the other, as they entered the large well-warmed
studio "You look rather bad."
"Leave me alone," muttered Warburton.
"All right. Sit down here and thaw yourself."
But Will's eye had fallen on a great canvas, showing the portrait of a
brilliant lady who reclined at ease and caressed the head of a great
deer-hound. He went and stood before it.
"Who's that?"
"Lady Caroline--I told you about her--don't you think it's rather good?"
"Yes. And for that very reason I'm afraid it's bad."
The artist laughed.
"That's good satire on the critics. When anything strikes them as
good--by a new man, that is--they're ashamed to say so, just because
they never dare trust their own judgment.--But it _is_ good, Warburton;
uncommonly good. If there's a weak point, it's doggy; I can't come the
Landseer. Still, you can see it's meant for a doggy, eh?"
"I guessed it," replied Will, warming his hands.
"Lady Caroline is superb," went on Franks, standing before the canvas,
head aside and hands in his pocket. "This is my specialty, old
boy--lovely woman made yet lovelier, without loss of likeness. She'll
be the fury of the next Academy.--See that something in the eyes,
Warburton? Don't know how to call it. My enemies call it claptrap. But
they can't do the trick, my boy, they can't do it. They'd give the end
of their noses if they could."
He laughed gaily, boyishly. How well he was looking! Warburton, having
glanced at him, smiled with a surly kindness.
"All your doing, you know," pursued Franks, who had caught the look and
the smile. "You've made me. But for you I should have gone to the
devil. I was saying so yesterday to the Crosses."
"The Crosses?"
Will had sharply turned his head, with a curious surprise.
"Don't you remember the Crosses?" said Franks, smiling with a certain
embarrassment, "Rosamund's friends at Walham Green. I met them by
chance not long ago, and they wanted me to go and see them. The old
lady's a bore, but she can be agreeable when she likes; the girl's
rather clever--does pictures for children's books, you know. She seems
to be getting on better lately. But they are wretchedly poor. I was
saying to them--oh, but that reminds me of something else. You haven't
seen the Pomfrets lately?"
"No."
"Then you don't know that Mr. Elvan's dead?"
"No."
"He died a month ago, over there in the South of France. Rosamund has
gone back to Egypt, to stay with that friend of hers at Cairo. Mrs.
Pomfret hints to me that the girls will have to find a way of earning
their living; Elvan has left practically nothing. I wonder whether--"
He smiled and broke off.
"Whether what?" asked the listener.
"Oh, nothing. What's the time?"
"Whether _what_?" repeated Warburton, savagely.
"Well--whether Rosamund doesn't a little regret?"
"Do _you_?" asked Will, without looking round.
"I? Not for a moment, my dear boy! She did me the greatest possible
kindness--only _you_ even did me a greater. At this moment I should
have been cursing and smoking cheap tobacco in Battersea--unless I had
got sick of it all and done the _hic jacet_ business, a strong
probability. Never did a girl behave more sensibly. Some day I hope to
tell her so; of course when she has married somebody else. Then I'll
paint her portrait, and make her the envy of a season--by Jove, I will!
Splendid subject, she'd be. . . . When I think of that beastly
so-called portrait that I put my foot through, the day I was in hell!
Queer how one develops all at a jump. Two years ago I could no more
paint a woman's portrait than I could build a cathedral. I caught the
trick in the Slummer, but didn't see all it meant till Blackstaffe
asked me to paint Lady Rockett.--Rosamund ought to have given me the
sack when she saw that daub, meant for her. Good little girl; she held
as long as she could. Oh, I'll paint her divinely, one of these days."
The soft humming of a gong summoned them to another room, where lunch
was ready. Never had Warburton showed such lack of genial humour at his
friend's table. He ate mechanically, and spoke hardly at all. Little by
little, Franks felt the depressing effect of this companionship. When
they returned to the studio, to smoke by the fireside, only a casual
word broke the cheerless silence.
"I oughtn't to have come to-day," said Will, at length, half
apologetically. "I feel like a bear with a sore head. I think I'm
going."
"Shall I come and see you some evening?" asked the other in his
friendliest tone.
"No--I mean not just yet.--I'll write and ask you."
And Will went out into the frosty gloom.