“Some day, if things happen as I should like, I am going to be an actor.
It is a very difficult and uphill course of life, I know; but still,
that is what I want to be, because I have a great feeling for the stage,
and I shall often and often go to a theatre at night after I have done
my day’s work, if you don’t mind—especially tragedies.”
She didn’t laugh at the idea or scoff at it but she thought that I
mustn’t fill my head with anything but fire insurance for the present.
And of course I said that my first thought would be to work in the
office and thoroughly earn my fifty pounds, and perhaps even earn more
than I was paid, and so be applauded as a clerk rather out of the
common.
She took me to a tailor’s shop and I was measured for a tail-coat. I
also had to get a top hat, such as men wear. I was tall and thin, and
when the things came I put them on, and Aunt Augusta said that the
effect was good, and Jane said that I looked “quite the man.” Aunt
Augusta took me to several picture-galleries, and I went about a good
deal by myself and made strange discoveries.
Many people seemed to know that I was new in London without my telling
them. Once I was nearly killed, showing how easily accidents happen. I
had dropped a half-penny in Oxford Street, as I crossed the road, and
was naturally stopping to pick it up, when the chest of a horse came
bang against me and rolled me over. Fortunately, I was not in my new
clothes. It was a hansom-cab horse that had run into me, and the driver
pulled him up so that the horse simply skated along on his shoes and
pushed me in front of him. Neither of us was hurt. A policeman appeared,
and the driver asked me whether I thought the middle of Oxford Street
was the right place for playing marbles. He meant it in an insulting
way, as if I was still a boy. And I said that I had dropped a halfpenny
and couldn’t surely be expected to leave it in the middle of London for
anybody to pick up.
The driver said that no doubt I was one of God’s chosen—meaning it
rudely—and the people laughed, and the policeman told us all to move on.
I went down a side street and cleaned myself up as well as I could. Then
I found a lavatory and washed myself and got a shoeblack to rub the mud
off me. London mud is very different from all other mud, not being pure,
like country mud, but adulterated with oil and tar and many other
products. The shoeblack charged three-pence, so it was an expensive
accident for me, besides the danger.
I passed the examination though they didn’t praise me much, or give any
evidence of pleasure or surprise; and then my aunt said that she thought
I ought to call on the Director of the Apollo Fire Office and thank him
for his great kindness in giving her his nomination for me. The Director
was out, but when he heard that I had called, he invited me to dine with
him. I had never been invited to dinner before and rather wished my aunt
would come too; but she said that she had not been asked, though she had
often been there—to see Mr. Benyon Pepys and his original etchings. He
followed art in his spare time, which was considerable, and my aunt had
given him etching lessons, at which she was a great dab. He was also a
descendant of the great Pepys of diary fame—so my aunt told me. He was a
bachelor and very fond of pictures and very rich, as all Directors must
be before they can rise to that high walk of life.
“You ought to wear dress clothes,” said Aunt Augusta; “however, it is
not vital. He will understand.”
“You can hire ’em for a song,” declared Jane; but my aunt decided that I
should put on my new tail-coat—with a white tie.
When it came to putting on this tie, however, she didn’t care about it,
and thought that I looked too much like a curate. She showed a sort of
objection to curates that much surprised me; because at Merivale there
had never been any feeling against them; in fact, quite the contrary.
Many of the masters at Merivale used to read for the Church while they
taught us; and when they had read enough, they went away and gradually
became curates, as the next stage in their careers.
But Aunt Augusta didn’t want me to look like one, and for that matter I
didn’t myself, having no feeling for the Church; and so I put on a dark
blue tie and wore my new silver watch and chain and went like that.
Mr. Benyon Pepys was a short, clean-shaved man and lived in the utmost
magnificence in a house not far from Cavendish Square. Naturally, I had
never seen such a house or such magnificence. It was an abode of the
highest art. There were three footmen and a church organ with golden
pipes in the hall alone; and everything was done on the same scale
throughout. One footman asked me my name and another took my overcoat
and top-hat and hung them up on a hat-stand, of which every hat-peg was
the twisted horn of an antelope! Then the man who had asked my name
threw open a door, on which were painted rare flowers—probably
orchids—and announced my arrival. “Mr. Corkey!” he said in a deep voice.
I walked in and found Mr. Benyon Pepys and Miss Benyon Pepys sitting one
on each side of a palatial mantelpiece, which was supported by the
figures of naked girls in pure white marble. They both rose from their
chairs as I walked down the room amid wonderful creations of art. They
did not seem to realise the fact that they were surrounded by such
amazing things. There were flowers and pictures in huge gold frames and
statues on pedestals; and, strange to say, amid all this profusion they
allowed a mere, live pug-dog with a pink bow tied round his neck! He sat
on a rug, which must once have been the skin of a perfectly enormous
tiger. It had glass eyes and its teeth were left in its jaws, which were
red, as in life, and wide open. The pug lounged upon it, as though to
the manner born.
“Well, Mr. Corker, so you’ve passed your examination and will join us
next week, I hear,” said Mr. Benyon Pepys. He spoke in a light, easy—you
might almost say a jaunty—tone of voice, though he was in full dress
clothes and wore a gold watch-chain on a spotless white waistcoat. Miss
Benyon Pepys was just as kind as him. There was not a spark of side
about either of them. They were both of great age and Mr. Pepys was of a
shining and complete baldness, as well as being clean-shaved. I told him
my name was Corkey, not Corker; and he said, “Yes, yes, Corker—I know.”
“And how do you like London?” asked Miss Benyon Pepys. She was clad in
some rare fabric—probably some fabulous embroidery from the Middle
Ages—and richly adorned with jewels, which flashed when she moved her
limbs; but she paid no attention to them, and was indeed far more
interested in the pug-dog than anything in the room.
He was called “Peter,” and made a steady and disgusting noise, like a
man snoring. He came in to dinner with us, and had a light meal off a
blue china plate, prepared by Miss Benyon Pepys.
I was just saying that I liked London, and had pretty well mastered
Oxford Street and Edgware Road, when a deep and musical chime of bells
rang out and the door was thrown open.
“Will you take my sister in to dinner?” said Mr. Benyon Pepys; but I was
prepared for this, because Aunt Augusta had warned me that it might
happen. So I gave her my right arm, and she put the tips of her left
hand fingers upon it, and I remember feeling curiously that, what with
diamonds and rubies and one thing and another, her hand, small though it
was, might easily have been worth many thousands of pounds.
“If the mere sister of a Director can do this sort of thing, how
majestic must be the wealth of the Director himself!” I thought. In fact
I very nearly said it, because it seemed to me that the idea was a great
compliment and ought to have pleased them both. It would have been well
meant anyway. But I found it difficult to make conversation, owing to
the immense number of things all round me that had to be noticed.
As a matter of fact, I couldn’t be said to take Miss Benyon Pepys in to
dinner, not knowing the way. But she took me in, and it was no mere
dinner, but a dazzling banquet on a table groaning with massive silver
and other forms of plate. There was no tablecloth in the usual
acceptation of the word; but a strip of rich fabric—probably antique
tapestry from France or Turkey—spread on a polished table which
glittered and reflected in its ebony depths the wax candles and silver
and various pieces of rare workmanship arranged upon the hospitable
board.
One would have thought, to see them, that a dinner of this kind—seven
courses not counting dessert—was an everyday thing with the Benyon
Pepys! It may have been, for all I know. Wine flowed like water—at
least, it would have done so if there had been anybody there to drink
it; but, of course, I didn’t, knowing well that wine goes to the head if
you’re not used to it—and Miss Benyon Pepys merely drank hot water with
a little tablet of some chemical that fizzed away in it—medicine, I
suppose. It was sad in a way to see her pass the luxurious dishes
without touching them. She little knew what she was missing. Even Mr.
Benyon Pepys himself only sipped each wine in turn, with birdlike sips,
but he never drank his glass quite empty. I expect the footmen dashed
off what he left, doubtless tossing up among themselves which should
have it.
I tried to talk at dinner, though there was little time, and once a good
thing, full of rich and rare flavours, was swept away before I had
finished it, because I stopped to speak.