Youth--Australia (Part 4)

________________________________________________
_ XI

Every day the Sydney Morning Herald was delivered at the Perkins's establishment, and every evening it reached the kitchen at tea-time. Mrs. Gabbitas regarded it as a very useful journal for fire-lighting purposes, but having no other interest in it was quite agreeable to its being out-of-date by one day when it reached her hands. Thus the daily newspaper became my perquisite each evening, to be returned faithfully in the morning with the day's supply of fuel, in order that it might duly fulfil its higher and more serviceable destiny in Mrs. Gabbitas's stove.

For quite a long time I never scanned the news columns of that really admirable newspaper. I might have thought that their perusal would have been helpful to me, especially as I cherished vague ideas of one day earning my living in a newspaper office. But, for the time, my mind was too much occupied with thoughts of another means to an end--shorthand. The longest chunks of unbroken letterpress were the leading articles. For months I never looked beyond them, and never stopped short of copying out at least one column of them, and often more, especially in those misguided early days before I awoke to the stern necessity of reading over every written line of shorthand.

I am afraid the leader-writers' eloquence and style--real and ever-present features in this journal's pages--were entirely wasted upon me. I copied them with slavish lack of thought, intent only on my shorthand, and most generally upon the physical difficulty of keeping my eyes open. I invariably fell asleep three or four times before finishing my allotted task, and only managed to keep awake for the reading of it by standing erect beside the packing-case and reading aloud. How it would have astonished those gifted leader-writers if they could have walked past, overheard me, and recognised in my halting, drowsy declamation their own well-rounded periods!

As I read the last word my spirits always rose instantly, and my craving for sleep left me. With keen anticipatory pleasure I would fold up the newspaper ready for the morning, take one look out from the doorway to note the weather, shed my clothes, snuff the candle, and climb luxuriously into bed with the current book, whatever it might be. No newspaper for me. This was real reading, and while I read in bed (travel, biography, and fiction) I lived exclusively in the life my author depicted. Vanished utterly for me were Dursley and its worthy folk, and Australia too for that matter. Practically all the books I read carried me to the Old World, and most often to England, which for me was rapidly becoming a synonym for romance, charm, interest, culture, and all the good things of which one dreams. Everything desirable, and not noticeable or recognised as being in my daily life, I grew gradually to think of as being part and parcel of English life. I did not as yet long to go to England. One does not long to visit the moon. But when some well-wrought piece of atmosphere, some happy turn of speech, some inspiring glimpse of high and noble motives or tender devotion, caught and held me, in a book, I would sigh quietly and say to myself:

'Ah, yes; in England!'

Looking back upon it, I am rather pleased with myself for the stubborn persistence with which I slogged away at the shorthand; because it never once touched my interest. For me, it was a veritable treadmill. And, for that reason, I suppose, I was never really good at it. I have no doubt whatever that it had real value for me as a disciplinary exercise.

And then my candle would gutter and expire. I have sometimes, by means of sitting up in bed, holding the book high, and using great concentration, devoured a whole chapter between the first sputtering sound of the candle's death-rattle and the moment of its actual demise. Indeed, I have more than once finished a chapter, when within half a page of it, by matchlight. But that, of course, was gross extravagance. Our candles seemed to me abominably short, and I once tried to seduce Mrs. Gabbitas into allowing me two at a time; but she, good soul, wisely said that one was more than I had any right to burn in an evening, and I was too miserly to buy them for myself.

Yes, it seems horribly unnatural in a youth, but I am afraid I was rather miserly at that time. I wanted passionately to do various things. Precisely what, I had never so far thought out. But I did not desire the less ardently for that. I suppose the thing I wanted was to 'better myself,' as the servants say. Was I not a servant? Without ever reasoning the matter out, I felt strongly that the possession of some money, a certain store, was very necessary to my well-being; that in some mysterious way it would add immensely to my chances, to my strength in the world; that it would put me on a footing superior to that I had at present. I even thought of it, in my innocence, as Capital. Many of my musings used to begin with: 'If a fellow has Capital'--and I believed that if he had not this magic talisman his position was very different and inferior. I thought of the world's hewers of wood and drawers of water as being the folk who had no Capital; the others as the people who had somehow acquired possession of the talisman. And I suppose I wanted to be of the company of the others.

Ten shillings a week means twenty-six pounds a year; and I very well remember that on the first anniversary of my entering Mr. Perkins's employ, my Government Savings Bank book showed a balance to my credit of twenty-two pounds three and fourpence. This sum, I decided, might fairly rank as Capital; it really merited the august name, I felt, being actually above the sum of twenty pounds. Eighteen pounds was a respectable nest-egg. Yes, but twenty-three [sic] pounds three and fourpence--that was Capital; and I now definitely took rank, however humbly, among the people who possessed the talisman. I realised very well that I was poor; that this sum of money was not a large one. Still, it was Capital, and, as such, it gave me a deal of satisfaction, and more of confidence than I could have had without it. I am certain of that. What a pity it is that one cannot always, later in life, obtain the same secure and confident feeling by virtue of possessing twenty pounds!

This meant that I had spent less than four pounds in the year. But no; Mr. Perkins gave me ten shillings, and Mrs. Perkins five shillings, at Christmas time. Also, I won ten shillings as a prize in a competition arranged by the Dursley Chronicle. It was for the best five hundred word description of an Australian scene, and I described Livorno Bay and its derelict; and, as I thought at the time--quite mistakenly, I am sure--described them rather well. Apart from a book or two I had bought practically nothing, save boots and socks and a Sunday suit of clothes. Mrs. Perkins had kindly supplied quite a stock of shirts for me, by means of operations performed upon old shirts of her husband's. My Sunday suit of clothes had occupied me greatly for some weeks. I had never before bought clothing of any kind. After two or three visits to the store, and many talks at mealtimes with Mrs. Gabbitas, I finally decided upon blue serge.

'It do show the dust, but it don't show the wear so much as the rest of 'em,' was the Gabbitular verdict which finally settled this momentous business. A tie to match was given in with the suit, a concession which I owed entirely to Mrs. Gabbitas's determined enterprise. The tie was of satin, and, taken in conjunction with a neatly arranged wad of silk handkerchief, extraordinarily variegated in colour (Mrs. Gabbitas's present), protruding from the breast-pocket of the new coat, it produced on the first Sunday after its purchase an effect which I found at once arresting and sedately rich. My looking-glass was not more than six inches square, but, by propping it up on a chair, and receding from it gradually, I was able to obtain a very fair view of my trousers; while, by replacing it on the wall, and observing my reflection carefully from different angles, I was able to judge of most parts of the coat and waistcoat.

After a good deal of thought, I decided that the best effect was obtained by fastening the top button of the coat, turning back one lower corner with careful negligence, and keeping it there by holding one hand in my trouser pocket. In that order, then, I interviewed Mrs. Gabbitas in the scullery, to receive her congratulations before proceeding to church. Altogether, it was a day of pleasing excitement; but, greatly though it intrigued me, the purchase left me as much a miser as ever, my only other extravagance for a long time being a cream-coloured parasol--my present to Mrs. Gabbitas; and---I may as well confess it--I could not have brought myself to buy that, but for the fact that it was called 'slightly shop-soiled,' and had been 'marked down' from 8s. 11d. to 4s. 10 1/2d.

Yes, for a youth of sixteen years, I fear it must be admitted that I was unnaturally parsimonious, and a good deal of what schoolboys used to call a smug and a swatter. It really was curious, because I do not recall that I had any ambition to be actually rich. Mr. Smiles and his Self Help would have left me cold if I had read that classic. I indulged no Whittingtonian dreams of knighthood, mayoral chains, vast commercial or financial operations, or anything of that sort. The things that interested me were largely unreal. I was immensely appealed to, I remember, by a phase in the career of Charles Reade's Griffith Gaunt, in which that gentleman lived incognito for awhile in a remote rural inn, and wooed (if he did not actually marry) the buxom daughter of the house, while his real wife was being accused of having murdered him. I think that was the way of it. I know the sojourn in that isolated inn--I pictured its lichen-grown walls; a place that would be approached quite nearly in the stilly night by wild woodland creatures--appealed to me as a wholly delightful episode.

I never had a dream of commercial triumphs. I did not think of fame. For what was I striving? And why did I so assiduously save? It is not easy to answer these questions. I find the thing puzzles me a good deal. There was my means-to-an-end attitude; but what was the precise end in view? If one comes to that I have been striving all my life long, and to what end? I know this, that in the midst of my physical content as a handy lad in a comfortable home, I had at least thought definitely of my future up to a certain point. I had told myself that there were two kinds of people in the world: the hewers of wood and drawers of water, earning a mere living, as I was earning mine, by the labour of their hands; and the others. I knew very little of what the others did, and had no very definite plan or desire to follow, myself, any of their occupations. But I did know that I wished to live in their division of the community. I wished to be one of those others. I should be unworthy of my father if I did not presently take my place among those others. And, I suppose, the only practical steps in that direction which I knew of and could take were the saving of my wages and the study of shorthand. I think that was about the way of it. And if my diligence with regard to these two matters may be taken as the measure of my desire to join the ranks of the others, it is safe to say I must have desired it very much indeed.

XII

Every one has noticed the odd vividness with which certain apparently unmemorable episodes stand out among one's recollections, though the details of far more important occasions have become merged in the huge and nebulous mist of the things one has forgotten. (Memory is a longish gallery, but the mass of that which is unremembered, how enormous this is!)

I recall a Sunday evening in Dursley. I had been to church, a rare thing for me, of an evening, to hear a strange, visiting parson; a man who had done missionary work in east London and in Northern Queensland. I remember nothing that he said, and nothing occurred that night to make it memorable for me. And yet ...

The aftermath of the sunset beyond Dursley valley was very beautiful. It often was. Venus shone out with mellow brilliance a little to the right of the church. The air was full of bush scents, and somewhere, not far from where I stood, dead brushwood was burning and diffusing abroad the aromatic pungency that fire draws from eucalyptus leaves.

Gradually, I was overcome by that sense of the infinitely romantic potentialities of life which I suppose overpowers all young people at times; and, more especially, rather lonely young people. The main events of my short life filed past before me in review against the background of an exquisitely melancholy evening sky, illumined by one perfect star. Even this dim light was further softened for me presently by the moisture that gathered in my eyes; tears that pricked with a pain that was almost intolerably sweet. I recalled how, as a child, I had longed to see strange and far-off lands; how I had bragged to servants and childish companions that I would travel. And then, how I had travelled--the Ariadne, my companions, my father, the derelict, Livorno Bay. And then, the blow that cut off all I had held by, and made of me an unconsidered scrap, owning nothing, and owned by nobody.

I had been very miserable at the Orphanage. Yes, there was distinct pleasure in recalling and weighing the sum of my unhappiness at St. Peter's. I had longed to be quit of it; I had willed to be out in the open world, free to make what I could of my own life. And, behold, I was free. My will had accomplished this, had brushed aside the restraining bonds of the whole organisation supervised by Father O'Malley. I, a friendless, bare-legged orphan had done this, because I desired to do it. And now I was a recognised and respectable unit in a free community, earning and paying my way with the best. (I was pleasantly conscious of my blue serge suit, the satin tie, and the multi-coloured silk handkerchief.) I was possessed of Capital--more than twenty pounds; quite a substantial little sum in excess of twenty pounds, even without the interest shortly to be added thereto. Finally, that very evening, had I not been addressed as 'Mister Freydon,' I, the erstwhile bare-footed 'inmate' of St. Peter's? There was nothing of bathos, nothing in the least ludicrous, to me in this last reflection.

'It's nothing, of course,' I told myself, with proud deprecation; 'and he's only a shop assistant. But there it is. It does show something after all. And, besides, he is a member of the School of Arts Committee!'

The 'he' in this case was, of course, the person who had shown discernment enough to address me as 'Mister Freydon.' And, deprecate as I might, the thing had given me a thrill of deep and real satisfaction. Merely recalling the sound of it added to the exaltation of my mood, and to my obsession by the wonder, the romance of the various transitions of my life.

The hazards of life, the wonder of it all--this it was that filled my mind. How would Ted be struck by it? I thought. And there and then I composed in my mind the letter which should accompany my return of the pound he had given me when I could find an address to which it could be sent. There should be no flinching here, no blinking the exact truth. I may have been an insufferable young prig and snob. Very likely I was. As I recall it that letter, composed while I gazed across the valley at the evening star, was informed by a sort of easy condescension and friendly patronage. Grateful, yes, but with a faint hint, too, that Ted had been rather fortunate, a little honoured perhaps in having enjoyed the privilege of assisting, however slightly, in the launch of my career. At one time I had gladly regarded it as a present. That, it seemed, was a blunder of my remote infancy. Honest Ted's pound was a loan, of course, and like any other honourable man I should naturally repay the loan!

Musing in this wise I turned away from the evening star, and walked very slowly past the dairy and the wash-house to my own little room. Now the odd thing was that, though I seemed to have given not one single thought to the future, though I seemed to have made no plan, but, on the contrary, to have confined myself exclusively to the idlest sort of musing upon the past, yet, as I walked into my dark room, I knew that I had definitely decided to leave Dursley at once, and take the next step in my career. I actually whispered to myself:

'It's a good little room. I shall miss this room. I shall often think of the nights I've spent here.'

All this, as though my few belongings had been packed, and I had arranged to depart next morning; though, in fact, I had not given a single conscious thought to the matter of leaving Dursley until I turned my back on the evening star.

Next morning at breakfast I told Mrs. Gabbitas I meant to leave and make for Sydney; and Mrs. Gabbitas gave me to understand that, with all their infinite varieties of foolishness, most young fellows shared one idiosyncrasy in common: they none of them had sense enough to know when they were well off. I spoke of my shorthand, and said I had not been working at it for nothing. Mrs. Gabbitas sniffed, and expressed very plainly the doubts she felt about shorthand ever providing me with meals of the kind I enjoyed at her kitchen table.

'I suppose the fact is gardening isn't good enough for you, and you want to be a gentleman,' the good soul said, with sounding irony. And, whilst I made some modestly deprecatory sound in reply, my thoughts said: 'You are precisely right.'

With news in hand I have no doubt Mrs. Gabbitas took an early opportunity of a chat with Mrs. Perkins. At all events I had no sooner got my lawn-mower to work that morning than the mistress called me to her where she lay on the verandah.

'Is it true we're going to lose you, Nick?' she said very kindly. And, as my irritating way still was, I blushed confusedly as I endorsed the report.

'Well, of course, we knew we should, sooner or later; and, though we'll be sorry to lose you, you are right to go; quite right. I am sure of that, and so is Geo--so is Mr. Perkins. But have you got a situation to go to, Nick?'

I told her I had not, and that I did not think I could secure a berth in Sydney while I was still in Dursley.

'No, no, perhaps not,' she said musingly. 'You must talk to Mr. Perkins about it, and I will, too. What made you decide on going now, Nick?'

'I--I don't know,' I replied awkwardly. And then the sweet kindliness of her face emboldened me to add: 'I was just thinking last night--thinking about my life as I looked at the sky where the sunset had been, and--somehow, I found I was decided.' Then, as if to justify if possible the exceeding lameness of my explanation: 'You see, Mrs. Perkins, I've got the hang of the shorthand pretty well now,' I added.

She nodded sympathetically. 'Well, I'm sure you'll succeed, Nick, I'm sure you will; for you're a good lad, and very persevering. The main thing is being a good lad, Nick; that's the main thing. It's sad for you, having lost your parents, and--and everything. But when you go away, Nick, just try to think of me as if I were your mother, will you? I'll be thinking quite a lot of you, you know. Don't you go and fancy there's nobody cares about you. We shall all be thinking a lot about you. And, Nick, if ever you find yourself in any trouble, if you begin to feel you're going wrong in any way, if you feel like doing anything you know is wrong, or if you feel downhearted and lonesome--you just get into a train and come to Dursley, Nick. Come straight here to me, and tell me everything about it, and--and I think I'll be able to help you. I'll try, anyhow; and you'll know I should want to. And if it isn't easy to come tell me just the same; write and tell me all about it. Promise me that, Nick.'

I promised her. She held out her white, thin hand and clasped my hard hand in it; and I went off to my mowing very conscious of my eyes because they smarted and pricked, but little indebted to them because they failed to show me anything more definite than a blur of greenery at my feet, and a blur of sunlight above.

A fortnight elapsed before I did really leave that place; but for me most of the emotion of leaving, of parting with my kindly employers and friends, and with pretty, peaceful Dursley, was epitomised in that little conversation on the verandah with Mrs. Perkins. I know now that there are many other sweet and kindly women in the world. At that time no one among them had ever been so sweet and kind to me.

XIII

When I stepped out of the train at Redfern Station in Sydney, I carried all my worldly belongings in a much worn carpet-bag which had been given me by Mr. Perkins. Its weight did not at all suggest to me the need of obtaining a porter's services, and hardly would have done so even if I had been accustomed to engaging assistance of the sort. Stepping out with my bag into the bustle of the capital city I walked, as one who knew his way, to where the noisy and malodorous old steam tram-cars started, and made my way by tram to Circular Quay. (I had had my directions in Dursley.) Here I boarded a ferry-boat, and at the cost of one penny was carried across the shining waters of the harbour to North Shore. Half an hour later I had mounted the hill, found Mill Street and Bay View Villa, and actually become a boarder and a lodger there, with a latch-key of my own.

The landlady having left the bedroom to which she had escorted me, my carefully sustained nonchalance fell from me; I turned the key in the door, and sat down on the edge of my bed with a long-drawn sigh. The celerity, the extraordinary swiftness of the whole business left me almost breathless.

'Yesterday,' I told myself, as one recounting a miracle, 'I was planting out young tomatoes in Mr. Perkins's garden in Dursley. Only a few minutes ago I was still in the train. And now--now I'm a lodger, and this is my room, and--I'm a lodger!'

I did not seem able to get beyond that just then, though later on, with a recollection of a certain passage in a favourite novel, I tried the sound, in a whisper, of:

'Mr. Nicholas Freydon was now comfortably installed in rooms on the shady side of--North Shore.' At the same time I ran over a few variants upon such easy phrases as: 'My rooms at North Shore,' 'Snug quarters,' 'My boarding-house,' 'My landlady,' and the like.

One must remember that I was less than two years distant from St. Peter's and from Sister Agatha and her cane.

There were two beds in my room; one small and the other very small. I was sitting on the very small one. The other belonged to Mr. William Smith, whose real name might quite possibly have been something else. For already, though I had not seen him, I had gathered that my room-mate was an elderly man with a history, of which this much was generally admitted: that he had seen much better days, and was a married man separated from his wife.

'But a pleasanter, kinder-hearted, nicer-spoken gentleman you couldn't wish to meet, that I will say,' Mrs. Hastings, the landlady, had told me. 'Which,' she added, after a pause given to reflection, with eyes downcast, 'if he was otherwise I should not've thought of letting a share of his room to anybody with recommendations from me nephew in Dursley--not likely. No, nor for that matter, of havin' him in my house at all.'

My landlady was an aunt of that Mr. Jokram who had earned distinction (apart from his membership of the School of Arts Committee) by being the first to address me as 'Mister Freydon.' This good man had taken a most friendly interest in my outsetting, and had written off at once to his aunt to know if she could include me among her boarders. Mrs. Hastings had explained that she was 'Full up as per usual, but if your gentleman friend would care to share Mr. Smith's bedroom, him being as quiet and respectable a gentleman as walks, it will be easy to put in another bed.'

This was before any mention had been made of terms. These, we subsequently learned, ranged from a minimum of 17s. 6d. per week, including light and use of bath. Later, the nephew was able to obtain special concessions for me, as the result of which I had the opportunity of securing all the amenities of Mrs. Hastings's refined home, including a share of Mr. Smith's room, and such plain washing as did not call for the use of starch--all for the very moderate charge of 16s. weekly.

Thus it was that, although a stranger and without friends in Sydney, I was able to go direct into my new quarters, without any loss of time or money; an important consideration even for a capitalist whose fortune at this time amounted to something nearer thirty than twenty pounds. (Mr. Perkins had given me an extra month's wages. Mrs. Perkins had supplemented this by half a sovereign, six pairs of socks, three linen shirts, and half a dozen collars; and Mrs. Gabbitas had given me a brand new Bible and Prayer-book, with ornate bindings and perfectly blinding type, and another of the silk handkerchiefs coloured like a tropical sunset.)

'I shall not be in to tea this evening, Mrs. Hastings, I said, with fine carelessness, as I left the house, after unpacking my belongings and paying a visit to the bathroom, an apartment formed by taking in a section of the back verandah. (The bath was of the same material as the verandah roof--galvanised iron.) 'I've got some business in Sydney that will keep me rather late.'

The good woman rather pierced my carefully assumed guise of nonchalance by the smile with which she said: 'Oh, very well, Mr. Freydon; I hope you'll not be kept too late--by business.'

'How in the world did she guess?' I thought as I walked down to the ferry. It may be that the virus of city life had in some queer way already entered my veins. Here was I, the parsimonious 'handy lad,' who had been saving ninety per cent. of my wages and never indulging myself in any way, actually contemplating the purchase of an evening meal in Sydney, while becoming indebted for an evening meal I should never eat in North Shore; to say nothing of making deceitful remarks about being detained by business, when I had deliberately made up my mind to postpone all business until the next day. Truly, I was making an ominous start in the new life; or so my twitching conscience told me, as I sat enjoying the harbour view from the deck of the ferry-boat which took me to Circular Quay.

My notion of dissipation and extravagance would have proved amusing to the bloods of that day, and merely incredible to those of the present time. There was an unnecessary twopence for the ferry--admitting the whole business to have been unnecessary. There was sixpence for a meal, consisting of tea and a portentous allowance of scones with butter. There was threepence for a packet of cigarettes ('colonial' tobacco), the first I had ever smoked, and a purchase which had actually been decided upon some days previously. Finally, there was fourpence for a glass of colonial wine in a George Street wine-shop; and this also, like the rest of the outing, had been practically decided upon before I left Dursley. But with regard to the wine there had been reservations. The cigarettes were certainly to be tried. The wine was to be had if circumstances proved favourable, and such a plunge seemed at the time desirable. It did; and so I may suppose the outing was successful.

During my wanderings up and down the city streets, I examined carefully the vestibules of various places of amusement--rather dingy most of them were at that date--but had no serious thought of penetrating further. The shops, the road traffic, and the people intrigued me greatly, but especially the people, the unending streams of lounging men, women, and children. Some, no doubt, were on business bent; but the majority appeared to me to take their walking very easily, and every one seemed to be chattering. My life since as a child I left England had all been spent in sparsely populated rural surroundings, and the noisy bustle of Sydney impressed me very much, as I imagine the Strand would impress a Dartmoor lad, born and bred, on his first visit to London.

It did not oppress me at all. On the contrary, I felt pleasantly stimulated by it. Life here seemed very clearly and emphatically articulate; it marched past me in the streets to a stirring strain. There were no pauses, no silences, no waiting. And then, too, one felt that things were happening all the time. The atmosphere was full of stir and bustle. Showy horses and carriages went spanking past one; cabs were pulled up with a jerk, and busily talking men clambered out from them, carelessly handing silver to the driver, as though it were a thing of no consequence, and passing from one's sight within doors, waving cigars and talking, talking all the time. Obviously, big things were toward; not one to-day and one to-morrow, but every hour in every street. Fortunes were being made and lost; great enterprises planned and launched; great crimes, too, I supposed; and crucial meetings and partings.

Yes, this was the very tide of life, one felt; and with what pulsing, irresistible strength it ebbed and flowed along the city highways! Among all these thousands of passers-by no one guessed how closely and with what inquisitive interest I was observing them. I suppose I must have covered eight or ten miles of pavement before walking self-consciously into that wine-shop, and sitting down beside a little metal table. I know now that, with me, nervousness generally takes the form of marked apparent nonchalance. Doubtless, this is due to concentrated effort in my youth to produce this effect. I did not know the name of a single Australian wine; but I remembered some enthusiastic comment of my father's upon the 'admirable red wine of the country,' so I ordered a glass of red wine, and, with an amused stare, the youth in attendance served me.

Like many of the wines of the country it was fairly potent stuff, and rather sweet than otherwise, probably an Australian port. I sipped it with the air of one who generally devoted a good portion of his evenings to such dalliance, and ate several of the thin biscuits which lay in a plate on the table. Meanwhile, I observed closely the other sippers. They were all in couples, and the snatches of their conversation which I heard struck me as extraordinarily dramatic in substance; most romantic, I thought, and very different from the leisurely, languid gossip of those who draw patterns in the dust with their clasp-knives, and converse chiefly about 'baldy-faced steers,' 'good feed,' 'heavy bits o' road,' and the like, with generous intervals of say ten or twelve minutes between observations. These folk in the wine-shop, on the contrary, tripped over one another in their talk; their hands and shoulders and brows all played a part, as well as their lips, and their glances were charged with penetrant meaning.

As I made my way gradually down to Circular Quay and the ferry, some one stepped out athwart my path from a shadowy doorway, and I had a vision of straw-coloured hair, pale skin, scarlet lips, a woman's figure.

'Going home, dear? What about coming with me? Come on, de-ear!'

Somehow I knew all about it. Not from talk, I am sure. Possibly from reading; possibly by instinct. I felt as though the poor creature had hit me across the face with a hot iron. I tried to answer her, but could not. She barred my path, one hand on my arm. It was no use; I could not get words out. Those waiting seconds were horrible. And then I turned and fairly ran from her, a rather hoarse laugh pursuing me among the shadows as I went.

It was horrible, and affected me for hours. But it did not spoil my outing. No, I think on the whole it added to the general excitation. I had a sense of having stepped right out into the deep waters of life, of being in the current. The drama of life was touching me now; its sombre and tragical side as well as the rest of it.

'This really is life,' I told myself as the ferry bore me among twinkling lights across the harbour. 'This is the big world, and Dursley hardly was.'

It stirred me deeply. The harbour itself; the dim, mysterious outlines of ships, the dancing water, the sense of connection with the world outside Australia, the very latch-key in my pocket, and the thought that I would presently be going to bed at my lodgings, in a room shared by an experienced and rather mysterious man, with a past; all combined to produce in me a stirring alertness to the adventurous interest of life.

XIV

One of the odd things about that first evening of mine in Sydney was that it introduced me to the tobacco habit, one of the few indulgences which I have never at any time since relinquished. I smoked several cigarettes that evening, with steadily increasing satisfaction. And, on the following day, acting on the advice of my room-mate, Mr. Smith, I bought a shilling briar pipe and a sixpenny plug of black tobacco as a week's allowance. From that point my current outgoings were increased by just sixpence per week, no less, and for a considerable period, no more.

For some days, at least, and it may have been for longer, Mr. William Smith became the mentor to whom I owed the most of such urban sophistication as I acquired. He was a very kindly and practical mentor, worldly, but in many respects not a bad adviser for such a lad so situated. When I recall the stark ugliness of his views and advice to me regarding a young man's needs and attitude generally where the opposite sex was concerned, I suppose I must admit that a moralist would have viewed my tutor with horror. But, particularly at that period, I am not sure that the average man of the world, in any walk of life, would have differed very much from Mr. Smith in this particular matter. One could imagine some quite worthy colonels of regiments giving not wholly dissimilar counsel to a youngster, I think.

Morning and evening Mr. Smith applied some sort of cosmetic to his fine grey moustache, which kept its ends like needles. He always wore white or biscuit-coloured waistcoats, and was scrupulously particular about his linen. He generally had an air of being fresh from his bath. His thin hair was never disarranged, and his mood seemed to be cheerfully serene. Summer heats drew plentiful perspiration from him, but no sign of languor or irritation. On Sunday mornings he stayed in bed till ten-thirty, with the Sydney Bulletin, and on the stroke of eleven o'clock he invariably entered the church at the corner of Mill Street. I used to marvel greatly at this, because he never missed his bath, and his Sunday morning appearance gave the impression that his toilet had received the most elaborate attention. He carried an ivory crutch-handled malacca walking-stick, and in church I used to think of him as closely resembling Colonel Newcome. His voice was a mellow baritone, he never missed any of the responses; and the odour which hung about him of soap and water, cosmetic, light yellow kid gloves, and good tobacco--he smoked a golden plug, very superior to my cheap, dark stuff--seemed to me at that time richly suggestive of luxury, sophistication, distinction, and knowledge of affairs.

Many years have passed since I set eyes on Mr. Smith, and no doubt he has long since been gathered to his fathers; but I believe I am right in saying that his was a rather remarkable character. I know now that he really was a dipsomaniac of a somewhat unusual kind. At ordinary times he touched no stimulant of any sort. But at intervals of about three months he disappeared, quite regularly and methodically, and always with a handbag. To what place he went I do not know. Neither I think did Mrs. Hastings or his employers. At the end of a week he would reappear, clothed as when he went away, but looking ill and shaken. For a few days afterwards he was always exceedingly subdued, ate little, and talked hardly at all. But by the end of a week he was himself again, and remained perfectly serene and normal until the time of his next disappearance. I once happened to see the contents of the handbag. They consisted of an old, rather ragged Norfolk coat and trousers and a suit of pyjamas; nothing else.

Mr. Smith was a sort of time-keeper at the works of Messrs. Poutney, Riggs, Poutney and Co., the wholesale builders' and masons' material people. I was informed that he had once been the chief traveller for this old-established firm, on a salary of seven hundred pounds a year, with a handsome commission, and all travelling expenses paid. His salary now was two pounds twelve shillings and sixpence a week; and I apprehend that his services were retained by the firm rather by virtue of what he had done in the past than for the sake of what he was doing at this time. I was told that commercial travelling in New South Wales, when Mr. Smith had been in his prime, was a dashing profession which produced many drunkards. But from Mr. Smith himself I never heard a word about his previous life.

I recall many small kindnesses received at his hands, and at the outset the domestic routine of my Sydney life was largely arranged for me by Mr. Smith.

'Never wear a collar more than once, or a white shirt more than twice,' was one of the first instructions I received from him. Subsequently he modified this a little for me, upon economic grounds, advising me to take special care of my shirt on Sunday, in order that it might serve for Monday and Tuesday. 'Then you've two days each for the other two shirts in each week, you see. But socks and collars you change every day. In Sydney you must never wear a coloured shirt; always a stiff, white shirt, in Sydney.'

On my second evening there Mr. Smith took me to a hatter's shop and chose a billycock hat for me, in place of the soft felt which I usually wore.

'You must have a hard hat in Sydney,' he said, 'except in real hot weather; and then you could wear a flat straw, if you liked. I prefer a grey hard hat for summer. But straw will do for a youngster. You should have a pair of gloves, for Sunday, you know. They're useful, too, for interviewing principals.'

One might have fancied that gloves were a kind of passport, or perhaps a skeleton key guaranteed to open principals' doors. It was Mr. Smith who first made me feel that there was a connection between morals, respectability, and cold baths. To miss the morning tub, as Mr. Smith saw it, was not merely a calamity but also a disgrace; a thing to make one ashamed; a lapse calculated seriously to affect character. How oddly that does clash, to be sure, with his views of a young man's relations with the other sex! And yet, I am not so sure. Shocked as many people would be by those views, they might admit in them perhaps a sort of hygienic intention. It was that I fancy, more than anything else, which did as a fact shock me. As companions, co-equals, fellow-humans, I believe this curious man absolutely detested women. I wonder what sort of a wife he had had! ...

When I come to compare my launch in Sydney with all that I know and have read of youthful beginnings in Old World centres, I marvel at the luxurious ease and freedom of Australian conditions. To put it into figures now--my start in Sydney did not cost me a sovereign. I did not spend two days without earning more than enough to defray all my modest outgoings. My search for employment, so far from wearing out shoe-leather, was confined to a single application, to one brief interview. This was not at all due to any cleverness on my part, but in the first place to the good offices of Mr. Perkins of Dursley, and in the second place to the easygoing character of prevailing Australian conditions.

On the morning after my first evening's dissipation in Sydney, I made my way to the business premises of Messrs. Joseph Canning and Son, the Sussex Street wholesale produce merchants and commission agents. This firm had had dealings with Dursley's Omnigerentual and Omniferacious Agent ever since his first appearance in that part, and it was no doubt because of this that Mr. Perkins wrote to them on my behalf. After waiting for a time in a dark little chamber containing specimens of cream separators and churns, I was taken to the private room of Mr. Joseph Canning, the senior partner, who, as I was presently to learn, visited the office chiefly to attend to such out-of-the-way trifles as my call, to smoke cigars, and to take selected clients out to lunch. The practical conduct of the business was entirely in the hands of Mr. John, this gentleman's only son.

I found Mr. Joseph Canning with his feet crossed on his blotting-pad, his body tilted far back in his chair, and his first morning cigar tilted far upward between his teeth, its ash perilously close to one bushy grey eyebrow.

'Well, me lad,' he said as I entered, 'how's the Omniferacious one? Blooming as ever, I hope.'

I explained that I had left Mr. Perkins in the best of health, and proceeded to answer, so far as I was able, the string of subsequent questions put to me regarding the town of Dursley, its principal residents, business progress, and chief hotel. I gathered that Mr. Canning had paid one visit to Dursley, under the auspices of its Omnigerentual Agent, and that while there he had contrived, with Mr. Perkins's assistance no doubt, 'to make that little town fairly hum.'

We talked in this strain for some time, and then Mr. Canning rose from his chair, clearly under the impression that his business with me had been satisfactorily completed, and prepared to dismiss me cordially, and proceed to other matters.

'Ah!' he ejaculated cheerfully, extending his right hand to me, and moving toward the door. 'Quite pleasant to have a chat about little Dursley. Well, take care of yourself in the big city, you know--bed by ten o'clock, and that sort of thing, you know; and--er--never touch anything in the morning. Safest plan.'

By this time the door was open, and I, on the threshold, was feeling considerably bewildered. With a great effort I managed to force out some such words as:

'And if you should hear of any sort of situation that I----'

At that he grabbed my hand again, and pulled me back into the room.

'Of course, of course! God bless my soul, I'd clean forgotten!' he exclaimed hurriedly as he strode across to his table and rang a bell.

'Ask Mr. John to kindly step this way a minute, will ye?' he said to the lad who answered the bell. 'Forget me name next, I suppose,' he added to me in a confidential undertone. 'Tut, tut! And I read Perkins's letter again just before you came in, too! Ah, here you are, John. Come in a minute, will you?'

A vigorous-looking fair-haired man of about five-and-thirty came into the room now, with the air of one who had been interrupted. He wore no coat, and his spotless shirt-sleeves were held well up on his arms by things like garters clasped above the elbow.

'Ah, John,' began his father, 'this is Mr. Perkins's "Nickperry"; you remember? Nick Freydon.' He referred to a letter on the table. 'Shorthand, you know, and all that. Well, what about it? D'jew remember?'

'Yes, yes, to be sure. Well, what about it?' This seemed to be a favourite phrase between father and son.

'Well, what was it you said? Thirty-five bob for a start, eh? Oh, well, you'll see to it, anyway, won't you? That's right. So long--er--Nickperry!'

'Good-morning, sir!'

And with that I found myself following Mr. John along a darkish passage to a well-lighted apartment, divided by a ground-glass partition from an office in which I saw perhaps eight or ten clerks at work.

'Now, Mr. Freydon,' said my guide, as he flung himself into a revolving chair, and motioned me to another on the opposite side of the table. 'We'll make it no more than five minutes, please, for I've got a stack of letters to answer, and some men to see at eleven sharp.'

And then I had a rather happy inspiration.

'Do you write your own letters, sir?' I asked.

'Eh? Oh, Lord, yes!' he said brusquely. 'I know some men dictate 'em to clerks, to be done in copper-plate, an' all that. But, goodness, I can write 'em myself quicker'n that! And we have to be mighty careful to say just the right kind of thing in our letters, too. It makes a difference.'

'Well, will you just try dictating one or two to me, sir, and let me take them in shorthand. Then I would bring them to you when you have seen the gentlemen at eleven.'

'Eh? Well, that's rather an idea. Let's have a shot. Here you are then. Pencil? Right? Well: "Dear Mr. Gubbins, yours of 14th, received with thanks." Got that? Yes; well, tell him--that is--"You are quite mistaken, I assure you, about your butter having been held back till the bottom was out of the market." Old fool's always grousing about his rotten butter. You see, the fact is his butter is second or third quality stuff, and he reads the quotations in the paper for the primest, and kicks like a steer because he doesn't get the same, or a penny more. Always threatening to change his agents, and I wish to God he would; only, o' course, it doesn't do to tell 'em so. There's a lot like Gubbins, an' one has to try an' sweeten 'em a bit once a week or so. Yes! Well, where were we? Eh? That all right?'

'Yes, sir. "Yours faithfully," or "Yours truly," sir?'

'Oh, well, I always say: "'shuring you vour bes' 'tention, bleeve me, yours faithfully, J. Canning and Son." It pleases them, an'----'

'Yes, sir.'

And some of the others were a good deal more sketchy, but fortunately there were only five in all. I asked Mr. John to let me take the original letters. It was plain that dictation was not his strong point. Neither, I thought, had he much idea of letter-writing; whereas I, so I flattered myself, could do it rather well. At least I had read something about commercial correspondence, and had also read the published letters of many famous people. So, as soon as I decently could, I pretended Mr. John had really dictated replies to his five letters, and that I had recorded his words in indelible shorthand. Then I said I would run away and write the letters while he kept his engagements.

'Right!' he said. 'Tell you what. Go into my father's room. He's gone out now, and you'll find paper and that there.'

So I made my first practical essay in commercial correspondence from the chair of the head of the firm, and among the fumes of the head's morning cigar.

In an old pocket-book I discovered a year or two ago the draft of the first letter I wrote for J. Canning and Son. Here it is:

'To Mr. R. B. Gubbins,
'Ferndale Farm,
'Unaville, N.S.W.

'Nov. 3rd, 1879.

'Dear Mr. Gubbins,--Thank you for your letter of the 2nd inst. We have looked carefully into the matter of your complaint, and are glad to be able to assure you that your fears are quite unnecessary. We were, of course, prepared to take the matter up seriously with those responsible, but investigation proved that there had been no delay whatever in disposing of your last consignment of butter. It happened, however, that an exceptionally large supply of the very primest qualities were on offer that morning, and though one or two may have reached higher prices, as the result of exceptional circumstances, the bulk changed hands at the price obtained for yours, and many consignments at a lower figure. In several cases the prices given in the newspapers are either incorrect, or apply only to one or two special lots.

'In conclusion, permit us to assure you, dear Mr. Gubbins, that while your interests are entrusted to our hands they will always receive the closest possible attention, and that nothing will be left undone which could be in any way of benefit to you.

'Trusting this will make the position perfectly clear to you, and that you will be under no further anxiety with regard to your consignments to us, now, or at any future time.--We are, dear Mr. Gubbins, yours faithfully,'

In the same unexceptional style I wrote to four other clients, after very careful perusal of their letters, combined with reflections upon Mr. John's running commentaries. As I wrote what my father had called 'an almost painfully legible and blameless hand,' and gave the closest care to these particular letters, their appearance was tolerably business-like when finished. Carrying these letters, and those they answered, I now began to reconnoitre passages and doorways to ascertain the whereabouts and occupation of Mr. John. Presently I saw him come hurrying in from the street, wiping his lips with a handkerchief.

'The letters, sir,' I began.

'Ah! Got 'em done already? Right. Come into my room.'

I stood and watched him reading my effusions, at first with upward twitching brows, and then with smiling satisfaction.

'H'm!' he said, as he gave them the firm's signature. 'It's a pretty good thing then, this shorthand. Wonderful the way you've got every little word down. That "In conclusion, permit us to assure you, dear Mr. Gubbins"--now, that's as a business letter should be, you know. There's not a house in Sussex Street turns out such good sweeteners as we do. I've always been very careful about that. That's how we keep up our connection. These farmers are touchy beggars, you know; but if only you take the right tone with 'em, you can twist 'em round your little finger. That's why I always lay it on pretty thick in the firm's letters. It pays, I can assure you.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, that's very good, Mr. Freydon; very good. We've never had this shorthand in the office before; but I think it's time we did, high time. It's no use my wasting valuable time writing all these letters myself, and with this shorthand of yours, I believe you can take 'em down as fast as I can say it--eh?'

'Oh yes, sir; easily,' I said, with shameless mendacity. As a fact, neither that morning, nor at any other time, did I 'take down' what Mr. John said in shorthand. But it was already apparent to me that he could be made quite happy by fancying that the letters were of his composition, and I did not conceive that it was part of my duty to undeceive him.

'Ah! Well, now, when could you begin work, Mr. Freydon?'

I smiled, and told him I could go on at once with any further letters he had.

'Yes, yes; to be sure. Begun already, as you say. Well, I told the old--I told my father I thought thirty-five shillings a week would-- Well, I'll tell you what. You go ahead as you've begun, and at the end of a month we'll make your pay two pounds a week. How'll that suit?'

'Thank you, sir; that will suit me very well.'

'Right. By the way, don't say "sir" to me, please. They all call me "Mr. John," and my father "Mr. Canning." See! Now, I'll just introduce you to Mr. Meadows, our accountant, and he will show you round. Mr. Meadows has charge of our clerical staff, you understand; but you'll have most to do with me, of course. There's a little bit of a room opposite mine, where we keep the stationery an' that. I dare say you'll be able to work there.'

In this wise, then, with most fortunate ease, I secured my first employment in the capital city; and very well it suited me, for the present. Within a week I found that I was left to open all letters, and to deal with them very much as I thought best, with references of course to Mr. John, and at times, in a matter of accounts, to Mr. Meadows, or again to the storekeeper and others. It was not good shorthand practice, but his correspondence pleased Mr. John very much--especially its more rotund phrases--whilst for my part I keenly relished the fact that I, the most junior member of the staff, had really less of supervision in my work than any one else in the office.

Upon the whole I was entitled, on that evening of my first day in the Sussex Street offices, to feel that I had made a tolerably creditable beginning, and that Sydney had treated the latest suppliant for her favour rather well. What I very well remember I did feel was that I should have an interesting story for Mr. William Smith that night when I reached 'my rooms' at North Shore. _

Read next: Youth--Australia (Part 5)

Read previous: Youth--Australia (Part 3)

Table of content of Record of Nicholas Freydon, An Autobiography


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book