Manhood--England: First Period (Part 3)

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_ XI

Fanny had spoken no word to me, and I wondered greatly at that. She had only smiled and laughed in a foolish way. And a few minutes later I knew by her breathing--even through the closed doors, so much was unmistakable--that she slept.

I may have sat there for an hour, nursing the bitterest kind of reflections. Then I decided to go out, and found I had left my hat in the bedroom. Very cautiously I opened one leaf of the folding doors, tip-toed into the small room, and took my hat from the chair on which it lay. My gaze fell for one instant across the recumbent figure of my wife, and was withdrawn sharply. I went out with anger and revulsion in my heart, and walked rather quickly for an hour, conscious of no relief from bitterness, no softening of my feelings.

Then I happened to pass a familiar restaurant, and told myself I would have some dinner. 'She must go her own way,' I muttered savagely.

I entered the place, found a seat, and consulted the bill of fare. A greasily smiling Italian came to take my order.

'Madame is not wiz you, sare?' the fellow said.

We had not been there for a month, but he remembered; and, on the instant, I recalled our last visit--the beginning of one of our fresh starts. And this was the end of it. Well!

Suddenly I found myself reaching for my hat.

'No,' I said, 'madam is late. I will go and look for her.' And out I went. In that moment I had seen pictures: Fanny, before our marriage, on her knees at my hearth in the room in Howard Street; in her dove-coloured frock on our marriage night, clinging to my arm when she was fresh from the excitement of leaving Howard Street. There were other scenes. What an immature and helpless child she was! And how much help had I given her? After all, food and clothing and so forth, freedom from tyranny--well, these were not everything. She needed more intimate care and guidance. The responsibility was mine.

In the end I went to a shop and bought the materials for a meal, even as on an evening which seemed very long ago, when I had given her supper in my bedroom. Only, on this occasion, with a sigh which contained considerable self-reproach, I omitted Burgundy, or any equivalent thereto. We had the wherewithal for brewing tea in our rooms. And so, carrying a supper for us both, I returned to the lodging. And there was Fanny on her knees before the hearth in the sitting-room, just as she had been on that previous occasion. And now she was crying. Her nerveless fingers held no brush. The hearth was far from speckless, and the grate held only dead grey ashes, and some scraps of torn paper--my own wasted manuscript.

Fanny was weeping, weakly and quietly. She knew, then. She had not forgotten that I had seen her. But her hair had been brushed. She wore a different gown. She looked shrinkingly and fearfully up at me as I came in.

'You better, little woman?' I said as I began to put down my parcels. I had tried hard to make the words sound careless and normal, kindly and cheerful. But I thought as I heard them that a man with a quinsy might have managed a better tone.

In another moment she was clinging to me somehow, without having risen to her feet, and sobbing out an incoherent expression of her penitence and shame. I was tremendously moved. And, while seeking to console her, my real sympathy for this sobbing child was shot through and illumined by the most fatuous sort of optimism.

'I've been making a tragedy out of a disagreeable mishap,' I told myself. 'She is only a child who has made herself ill. The thing won't happen again, one may be sure. This is a lesson she will never forget. No one could possibly mistake the genuineness of all this.' By which I meant her heaving shoulders, streaming eyes, and penitent self-abasement.

In the process of soothing her, of course, I made light of her self-confessed baseness. I suppose I spent at least half an hour in comforting her. Then we supped, with a hint of April gaiety towards the end. I endeavoured to be humorous in a lover-like way. Fanny dabbed her eyes, smiled, and choked, and even laughed a little. But the vows, protestations, resolves for the future--these were all most solemn and impressive.

And they all held good, too,--for a week and a half. And then our landlady gave me notice, because in the broad light of mid-afternoon Fanny had stumbled over the front door-mat on entering the house, and lain there, laughing and singing; she had refused to move, and had had to be dragged upstairs for appearance's sake.

The landlady must have occupied ten minutes, I think, in giving me notice. Almost, I could have struck the poor soul before she was through with it. When at length she drew breath, and allowed me to escape, I thought her Cockney dialect the basest and vilest ever evolved among the tongues of mankind. Yet the good woman was really very civil, and rather kindly disposed towards me than otherwise, I think. There was no good reason why I should have felt bitter towards her. Rather, perhaps, I should have been apologetic. And it was clean contrary to my nature and disposition, this savage bitterness. But one of the curses of squalor is that it exacerbates the mildest temper, corrodes and embitters every one it touches.

On the third morning after our instalment in new lodgings--two almost exactly similar rooms, a little farther away from Mrs. Pelly and Howard Street, in a turning off the lower Hampstead Road--I received a letter, forwarded on from our first lodging, from Arncliffe, the editor to whom, some four years before this time, I had taken a letter of introduction. At intervals Arncliffe had accepted and published quite a number of articles from my pen, but we had not again met, unless one counts the occasion upon which I followed him into an expensive restaurant at luncheon time, on the off-chance of being noticed by him. The letter ran thus:

'Dear Mr. Freydon,--As you are probably aware, I am now in the chair of the Advocate, and a pretty uneasy seat I find it, so far. It occurs to me that we might be able to do something for each other. Will you give me a call here between three and four one afternoon this week, if you are not too busy.--

Yours sincerely,
Henry Arncliffe.'

The letter gave me rather a thrill. Sylvanus Creed had published two books of mine, and my work had recently appeared in several of the leading journals. But the Advocate was certainly one of the oldest and most famous of London's daily newspapers--I vaguely recalled having read somewhere that it had changed its proprietors during the past week or so--and I had never before received a summons from the editor of such a journal. Fanny had a headache and was cross that morning; but I told her of the letter, and explained that it might easily mean some increase in my earnings.

'If he would commission me for a series of articles, we might afford to take a room on the next floor for me to work in,' I said rather selfishly perhaps.

'Groceries seem to be dearer every week,' said Fanny, 'and Mrs. Heaps charges sevenpence for every scuttle of coal. I never heard of such a price. Mother never charges more than sixpence, no matter if coal goes up ever so.'

This touched a sore spot between us. It seemed Mrs. Pelly had two rooms empty, and Fanny did not find it easy to forgive me for my refusal to go and live in Howard Street.

If Arncliffe found his editorial chair an uneasy seat, it was not the chair's fault. A more dignified and withal more ingeniously contrived and padded resting-place for mortal limbs I never saw. And the editorial apartment, how spacious, silent, and admirably adapted, in the dignity of its lines and furnishings, for the reception of Cabinet Ministers, and the excogitation of thunderbolts for the chancelleries of Europe! It was currently reported in Fleet Street that Lord Beaconsfield had been particularly familiar with the interior of that apartment.

I found the great man in cheerful spirits, and looking fresher than ordinary mortals, I suppose because his day had only just begun. From him I learned how, some eight days previously, the Advocate had been purchased, lock, stock, and barrel (from the family whose members had inherited possession of it), by Sir William Bartram, M.P., head of the great engineering and contracting firm which bore his name. It seemed Sir William had been advised by a very great statesman indeed to secure the editorial services of Mr. Arncliffe; and he had managed to do it in forty-eight hours by dint of the exercise of a certain amount of political and social influence in various quarters, and by entering into a contract which, for some years, at all events, would make Arncliffe a tolerably rich man.

A good deal was left to my imagination, of course. It was assumed, very kindly, that I understood the relations existing between this nobleman and the other, as touching Sir William's precise influence and sphere in the world of politics. Naturally, when the Party Whip heard so and so, he went to Mr. ----, and the result, of course, was pressure from Lord ----, which settled the matter in five minutes. I nodded very intelligently at intervals, to show my recognition of the inevitableness of it all; and so an end was reached of that stage in our conversation.

In the slight pause which followed Arncliffe touched a spring releasing the door of a cabinet apparently designed to hold State Papers of the highest importance, and disclosed some beautiful boxes of cigars and other creature comforts. It became clear to me, as I thanked Arncliffe for the match he handed me, that he must have forgotten the first impressions he had formed of me some years earlier. Perhaps he had confused me in his mind with some other more important and affluent person. And yet he did remember some of my articles. His remarks proved that. I wondered if he could also remember that they had reached him, some of them, from South Tottenham. Probably not. And, if he did, his editorial omniscience could hardly have given him knowledge of any of my slum garrets. On the other hand, he clearly assumed that I was familiar with the life of the House of Commons and the clubs of London, if not with that of the other august and crimson-benched Chamber.

'You know L----,' he said, casually mentioning a leader in literary journalism so prominent that I could not but be familiar with his reputation.

'By name, of course,' I agreed.

'Ah! To be sure. And T----, and R----, and, I think, J----; yes, I've got 'em all. So we ought to make the Advocate move things along, if the most brilliant staff in London can accomplish it.'

I nodded sympathetically, and presently gathered that over and above all this the kindly and intimate relations subsisting between Arncliffe and the principal occupants of the Treasury Bench (not to mention a certain moiety of influence which might conceivably be exercised by the new proprietor, Sir William) were such as to ensure brilliant success and greatly increased prestige to the Advocate, under the new regime.

All this was very pleasant hearing, of course, and at suitable intervals I offered congratulatory movements of the head and eyebrows, with murmured ejaculations to similar effect. But, as touching myself and my obscure problems (of which such an Olympian as Arncliffe could, naturally, have no conception), it was all somewhat insubstantial and remote; rather of the stuff of which dreams are compounded. And so, watching my opportunity, I presently ventured a tentative inquiry as to the direction in which I might hope to justify the terms of Mr. Arncliffe's letter, and be of any service.

'Oh! Well, of course, that's for you to say,' said the editor, with a suggestion of having been suddenly curbed in full career. 'I may be quite wrong in supposing such things would have any interest for you. But I--I have followed--er--your work, you know; followed your work and, in fact, it struck me you might like to join us here, you know. It is a staff worth joining, I think, and-- But, of course, you are the best judge of your own affairs.'

'It's extremely kind of you, extremely kind.'

'Not at all. I think you could do good work for the Advocate.'

'There's nothing I'd like better. But-- Do I understand that you mean me to join your permanent staff, and come and work here in the building every day?'

'Why, yes; yes, to be sure.'

'I see.'

It meant an end to my free-lancing then. But, after all, what had this free-lancing meant, since my marriage? It would provide a place to work in. The hours might not be excessive. The pay ... Fanny was for ever talking of the increase in prices. My earnings, though on the up grade, had seemed very insufficient of late. There certainly was nothing to make me cling to our home as a place in which to carry on my work.

'And in the matter of salary?' I said, as who should say that in such a business it is well to glance at even the most trivial of details.

'Ah!' replied Arncliffe. 'Yes; that's a point now, isn't it? You see the fact is I had a bit of a scene with the business side here yesterday. We are new to each other as yet, you know--the manager and myself. But he's a very decent fellow, and I shall soon have him properly in hand, I'm sure of that. Meantime, of course, I have been rather going it, you know, from his point of view. You can't get L----, and T----, and R----, for tuppence-ha'penny, you know.'

'No, indeed, that's true,' said I, with the air of one who had tried this game and proved its impossibility.

'No. And so, in the matter of pay I must go gently, you know, at first. I must ca' canny for a while. I shall be able to make things all right a little later on, you know, but just to begin with I'm afraid I couldn't manage more than three or four hundred a year.'

I did not think it necessary to mention that my London record so far was little more than half the lower sum mentioned. On the contrary, I pinched my chin and said: 'Oh!' rather blankly, and without really knowing what I said, or why I said it. I wanted to think, as a matter of fact. But what I said was well enough.

'H'm! Yes, I see what you mean. It is poor, I know,' said Arncliffe, in his quick, burbling way. 'But, as I say, I should hope to improve it a little later on, you know. And, meantime, you may probably continue to earn something outside, you know; so that two or three hundred--say three hundred--but of course you're the best judge.'

Perhaps I was. I wonder! At all events, my mind was made up. The life of the last few months had made it clear that I needed more money.

'Oh, I'll be very glad,' I said. 'By the way, you did mention at first three or four, not two or three hundred.'

'Did I? Ah! Well, say three to begin with.'

I gathered it was rather difficult for the real Olympian to think at all in figures so absurdly low. So we let it go at that, and, this being a Friday, I agreed to start work at the office on the following Monday.

'I shall be able to get a room here, shall I not?' I asked with some anxiety.

'A room? Oh, surely, surely. Yes, yes, that's all right. Ask for me. Come and see me before doing anything, and I'll see to it. So glad we've fixed it. Good-bye!'

And so, very affably, I was bowed out of my free-lance life, the which I had entered by way of the north-eastern slums.

XII

My first Monday in the Advocate office was not a pleasant day. Arriving there about ten o'clock in the morning, I learned that the editor was never expected before three in the afternoon. I knew no other person in the building, and so no place was open to me except the waiting-room. However, I whiled away the morning in that apartment by making a pretty thorough study of a file of the Advocate, in the course of which I took notes and made memoranda of suggestions which would have kept an editor busy for a week or two had he acted upon one half of them.

The time thus spent was far from wasted, since it gave me more of an insight into current politics (as reflected in the pages of this particular organ) than I had obtained during my whole life in England up till then, and it gave me a thorough grasp of the policy of the Advocate. After a somewhat Barmecidal feast in a Fleet Street eating-house (domestic expenditure left me very short of funds at this time), I returned to my post and wrote a political leading article which I ventured to think at least the equal in persuasive force and profundity of anything I had read that morning. At three o'clock precisely, my name, written on a slip of paper, was placed on the editorial table. There were then nine other people in the waiting-room. At four I began a second leading article, which was finished at half-past five. At a quarter to six the manuscript of both effusions was sent in to the editor. At a quarter to seven inquiry elicited the information that the editor had left the building almost an hour since, with Sir William Bartram, after a crowded afternoon which had brought disappointment to many beside myself who had wished to see him.

Unused as I was now to salary earning I felt uneasy. It seemed to me rather dreadful that any institution should be mulcted to the extent of a guinea in the day, by way of payment to a man who spent that day in a waiting-room. I looked anxiously for my leading articles next morning. But, no; the editorial space was occupied by other (much less edifying) contributions upon topics which had not occurred to me. During that morning I began to fancy that the very bell-boys were suspicious, and might be contemplating the desirability of laying a complaint against me for not earning my princely salary.

However, at a few minutes after three o'clock, I was escorted by the head messenger--who had rather the air of a seneschal or chamberlain--to the editorial apartment, where I found Arncliffe giving audience to his news editor, Mr. Pink, and one of his leader-writers, a very old Advocate identity, Mr. Samuel Harbottle---a white-whiskered and rubicund gentleman, who was entitled to use most of the letters of the alphabet after his name should he so choose. I was presented to both these gentlemen, and in a few minutes they took their departure.

'Poor old Harbottle!' said Arncliffe, when the door had closed behind the leader-writer. 'An able man, mind you, in his prehistoric way; but-- Well, he can hardly expect to live our pace, you know. He has had a very fair innings. Still, we must move gradually. The change has to be made, but we don't want to upset these patriarchs more than is absolutely necessary. Have a cigar? Sure? Well, I dare say you're right. I'll have a cigarette. Sorry I couldn't see you yesterday. Now I'll tell you what I want you to tackle for me, first of all: Correspondence.'

For a moment I had a vision of almost forgotten days in Sussex Street, Sydney: 'Dear Mr. Gubbins,--With regard to your last consignment of butter,' etc.

'The correspondence of this paper has been disgracefully neglected. And, mind you, that's a serious mistake. Nothing people like better than seeing their names in the paper. They make their relatives read it, and for each time you print their rubbish, they'll be content to scan your every column for a fortnight. I mean to do it properly. We'll give two or three columns a day to our Letters to the Editor. But, the point is, they must be handled intelligently, both with regard to which letters should be used and which should not; and also in the matter of condensation. We can't let 'em ramble indefinitely, or they'd fill the paper. Now that's what I want you to tackle for me for a start. I can't possibly get time to wade through them myself; but if you once get the thing licked into proper shape, it will make a good permanent feature, and--er--you will gradually drop into other things, you know.'

'Yes. I've made notes of a few suggestions,' I began.

'Quite so. That's what I want. That's where I hope we shall be really successful. There's no good in having a brilliant editorial staff if one doesn't get suggestions from them, and act on 'em.'

I drew some memoranda from my pocket. But the editor swept on.

'I'm a thorough believer in suggestions. The moment I have got things running a little more smoothly, I shall have a round table conference every afternoon to deal with suggestions for the day. Meantime, I'll tell my secretary to have all letters for publication passed straight on to you, so that you can sift and prepare a correspondence feature every day. They may want helping out a bit occasionally, of course. A friendly lead, you know, from "An Old Reader," or "Paterfamilias," to keep 'em to their muttons. You'll see.'

'And where can I work?' I asked.

'Ah, to be sure. Yes. You want a room. Come with me now. I'll introduce you to Hutchens, the manager, and he'll fix you up.'

Mr. Hutchens proved to be a miracle of correctness. I never knew much of Lombard Street, Cornhill, Threadneedle Street, and their purlieus; but I felt instinctively that Mr. Hutchens, in his dress, tone, and general deportment, had attained as closely as mortal might to the highest city standards of what a leading city man should be. I never saw a speck of dust on his immaculately shining boots or hat. His manner would have been almost priceless, I should suppose, in the board room of a bank. His close-clipped whiskers--resembling some costly fur--his large, perfectly white hands and frozen facial expression were alike eloquent of massive dividends, of balance sheets of sacred propriety, of gravely cordial votes of thanks to noble chairmen, of gilt-edged security and success.

There was something, too, of the headmaster in the way in which he shook hands with me, and in the automatic geniality of the smile with which he favoured Arncliffe. (In this connection, of course, Arncliffe was a parent, and I a future incumbent of the swishing block.)

'Another star in our costly galaxy,' he said; and, having reduced me by one glance to the proportions of a performing flea, rather poorly trained, he gave his attention indulgently to the editor.

'With regard to that question of the extra twenty minutes for the last forme,' he began.

'Yes, I know,' said Arncliffe. 'Drop in and see me about it later, will you?' (I marvelled at his temerity. As soon would I have thought of inviting the Lord Mayor to forsake his Mansion House and turtles to 'drop in and see me later!') 'Meantime, I want you to find a home for Freydon, will you? He's going to tackle the--a new feature, you know, and must have a room.'

'There's not a vacant room in the building, Mr. Arncliffe--hardly a chair, I should suppose. We now have a staff, you know, which----'

'Yes, I know, I know; there's got to be a good deal of sifting, but we must go gently. We don't want to set Fleet Street humming. Look here! What about old Harbottle? He has a room, hasn't he?'

'Mr. Harbottle has had his room here, Mr. Arncliffe, for just upon twenty-seven years.'

'Yes; I thought so. Where is it?'

'Mr. Harbottle's room is immediately overhead.'

'Let's have a look at it. Do you mind? Can you spare a minute?'

'Oh, I am quite at your service, of course, Mr. Arncliffe.'

A minion from the messenger's office walked processionally before us bearing a key, and presently we were in Mr. Harbottle's sanctuary. Two well-worn saddle-bag chairs stood before the hearth, and between them a chastely designed little table. On the rug was a pair of roomy slippers. In a glass-fronted cabinet one saw decanters and tumblers. Against one wall stood a large and comfortable couch. The writing-table was supplied with virgin blotting-paper, new pens, works of reference, ash-tray, matches, and the like; and over the mantel hung a full-length portrait of Lord Beaconsfield. There was also an ivory-handled copper kettle, and a patent coffee-making apparatus.

'H'm! The old boy makes himself comfortable,' said Arncliffe. 'He has written one short leader note since--since the change. And where does the other old gentleman work, Hutchens? The one with gout, you know. What's his name? The very old chap, I mean.'

'Dr. Powell? Dr. Powell's room is the next one to this.'

A key was brought to us, and we inspected another very similar apartment, which had a green baize-covered leg-rest on its hearth-rug.

'H'm! Dr. Powell is not quite so busy, of course. We haven't had a line from him yet. Well, Hutchens, you might have Dr. Powell's things put in Mr. Harbottle's room at once, will you? or the other way about, you know. It doesn't matter which. Then Freydon here can have one of these rooms. He will want to start in at once.'

'As you like, of course, Mr. Arncliffe,' said the manager, with portentous suavity. 'These gentlemen are of your staff, not mine. But, really! Well, it is for you to say, but I greatly fear that one or both of these gentlemen will be quite likely to resign if we treat them in so very summary a fashion.'

'No! Do you really think that?' asked Arncliffe, so earnestly that I felt my chance of having a room to myself was irretrievably lost.

'I do indeed, Mr. Arncliffe. You see, these gentlemen have been accustomed for very many years to--well, to a considerable amount of deference, and----'

'Well, then, in that case, I'll tell you what, Hutchens; put 'em both in the other old gentleman's room upstairs, will you? Mr. Thingummy's, you know, who specialises on Egyptology. I know he's got a nice room, because he insisted on my drinking a glass of port there the other night. Port always upsets me. Put 'em both in there, will you? Then we'll give one of these rooms to L----, and you might let Freydon here start work in the other right away, will you? By Jove! If you're only right, you know, that will simplify matters immensely. An excellent idea of yours, Hutchens. I'm no end obliged to you.'

'But, Mr. Arncliffe, I really----'

'Right you are! I'll see you later about that last forme question. Look in in about an hour, will you? I must bolt now--half a dozen people waiting. You'll get the letters from my secretary, Freydon, won't you? Come and see me whenever you've got any suggestions. Always ready for suggestions, any time!'

His last words reached us faintly from the staircase.

'Tut, tut!' said Mr. Hutchens. 'I am afraid these violent upheavals will make for a good deal of trouble; a good deal of trouble. However!' And then he glared formidably upon me, as who should say: 'At least, you cannot give me any orders. Let me see you open your mouth, you confounded newcomer, and I will smite you to the earth with a managerial thunderbolt!'

'Well,' said I cheerfully, 'I'd better go and fetch those letters. And which of these rooms would you prefer me to take?'

'I would prefer, sir, that you took neither of them. But as Dr. Powell's gout is very bad, and he is therefore not likely to be here this week, you had better occupy this room--for the present.'

The emphasis he laid on these last words seemed meant to convey to me a sense of the extreme precariousness of my tenure of any room in that building, if not of existence in the same city.

'I trust you understand that this choice of rooms is no affair of mine,' I said.

I thought his frozen expression showed a hint of softening at this, but he only said as he swept processionally away:

'I will give the requisite instructions.'

XIII

For some weeks I was rather interested by the manipulation of that correspondence. Treated in a romantic spirit, the work was not unlike novel or play-writing; and, on paper, I established interesting relations with quite a number of rural clergymen, country squires, London clubmen, a don or two, and some lady correspondents.

I availed myself generously of the hint about giving an occasional lead, and in starting new topics of discussion entered with zest into the task of creating and upholding imaginary partisans with one hand, whilst with the other hand bringing forth caustic opponents to vilify and belittle them. As a fact, I believe I made its correspondence the most amusing and interesting feature in the paper. But, as his way was, Arncliffe lost his enthusiasm for it after a time, and, delegating the care of its remains to some underling, spurred me on to fresh fields of journalistic enterprise.

It was not easy for me to develop quite the same interest in these later undertakings, whatever their intrinsic qualities, for the reason that my domestic circumstances were becoming steadily more and more of a preoccupation and an anxiety. It had not taken very long for me to learn that, in my case at all events, the fact of one's income being doubled does not necessarily mean that one's life is made smooth and easy upon its domestic side. By virtue of my increased earnings we had moved, after my first month as a salaried man, to rather better rooms; but there seemed no point in having more than two of them, since I now had a room of my own at the Advocate office, vice poor Dr. Powell and his leg-rest, now no longer to be met with in that building.

As time went on many unpleasant things became evident, among them the conclusion that ours, Fanny's and mine, was to be a nomadic sort of existence, though it was apparently never to fall to me to give notice of an intended change of residence. The notice invariably came from our landladies. And the better the lodging, the briefer our stay in it, because our notice came the sooner. In view of this it was, more than for any monetary reason--though, as a fact, it did seem to me that I was rather more short of money now than in my poorer days--that we took to living in shabby quarters, and in the frowzier types of apartment houses, where few questions are asked, and no particular etiquette is observed....

So I set these things down as though looking back across the years upon the affairs of some unfortunate stranger on the world's far side. But, Heaven knows, this is not because I have forgotten, or shall ever forget, any of the squalid misery, the crushing, all-befouling humiliation and wretchedness of those years. Just as one part of the period burnt its mark into me for ever by means of its effects upon my bodily health, just as surely as it burned its way through my poor wife's constitution; so indelibly did every phase of it imprint itself upon my brain, and permanently colour my outlook upon life.

Men, and even women, who have never come into personal contact with the pestilence that infected my married life, are able to speak lightly enough of it.

'Bit too fond of his glass, I'm told!'

'His wife is a bit peculiar, you know. Yes, he has to keep the decanters under lock and key, I believe.'

Remarks of that sort, often semi-jocular, are common enough. The pastry-cooks and the grocers know a lot about the feminine side of this tragedy, at which so many folk smile. But those who, from personal experience, know the thing, would more likely smile in the face of Death himself, or joke about leprosy and famine.

I had seen something of the working of the curse among London's very poor people. Now, I learned much more than I had ever known. At first I thought it terrible when, once in a month or so, Fanny became helpless and incapable from drinking gin. I came eventually to know what it meant to see ground for thankfulness, if not for hope, in a period of forty-eight consecutive hours of sobriety for my wife.

The practical difficulties in these cases are very great for people as comparatively poor as we were. They are intolerably acute in the households of workmen earning from one to two pounds a week. In such families the presence of children--and there generally are children--is an added horror, which sometimes leads to the most gruesome kind of murder; murder for which some poor, unhinged, broken-hearted devil of a man is hanged, and so at last flung out of his misery.

I never gave Fanny any money now if I could possibly avoid it. Accordingly, I discovered one day, when I had occasion to look for my dress clothes, that, having sold practically every garment of her own, my wife had cleared out the major portion of my small wardrobe.

But a far worse thing happened shortly afterwards, when my wife pawned some plated oddments belonging to our landlady. This episode kept me on the rack for a full week. Replacing the stolen articles was, fortunately, not difficult; but the landlady was. She was bent upon prosecution, and our escape was an excruciatingly narrow one. I had a four days' 'holiday' over this episode, during which my editor was allowed to picture me in cheerful recuperation up-river--one of a merry boating party.

After this I made inquiries about trained nurses, and gathered that they were quite beyond my means; not alone in the matter of the scale of remuneration they required, but, even more markedly, in the scale of household comfort which their employment necessitated. I talked the matter over very seriously with Fanny, and begged her to try the effect of three months in a curative institution of which I had obtained particulars. At first she was very bitter and angry in her refusal to discuss this. Then she wept, sobbed, and became hysterical in imploring me never to think of such a thing for her. But the extremely difficult and harrowing escape from police court proceedings had impressed me very deeply.

As soon as we could get together the bare necessities by way of furnishings, I insisted on our moving into unfurnished rooms in which we could cater for ourselves. But the result was not merely that there was never a meal prepared for me, but also that Fanny never had a proper meal. I engaged servants. They either gave notice after a week, or worse, much worse, my wife made boon companions of them. We moved again, this time into unfurnished rooms in a house whose landlady undertook to serve meals to us at stated hours. But the house was too respectable for us, and in a month we were given notice.

No, it was not easy to develop any very warm interest in Mr. Arncliffe's projects for the stimulation of the Advocate's circulation. But I occupied Dr. Powell's old room during most days, and did my best; and, rather to my surprise, when I quite casually said I was not able to afford some luxury or another--lawn tennis, I believe it was, recommended by my chief as a remedy for my fagged and unhealthy appearance--I was given an increase of salary to the extent of an additional fifty pounds a year. I expressed my thanks, and Arncliffe said:

'Not at all, not at all. I'm only too glad. Your work's first rate, and I much appreciate your suggestions. I don't want you to work less; but, in all seriousness, my dear fellow, you should take it easier. Do just as much work, but don't worry so much about it. Carry your whatsaname more lightly, you know. Believe me, that's the thing.'

I agreed of course, and went home to give Fanny the news of the increased salary. I found her helpless and comatose on the hearth-rug.

I had talked to doctors, and gleaned little or nothing therefrom. Now I tried a lawyer, with a view to finding out the legal aspect of my position. Was it possible to oblige my wife to enter a curative institution against her will? Certainly not, save by a magistrate's order, and as the result of repeated appearances in the dock at police courts.

The lawyer told me that our 'man-made' laws were pretty hard upon husbands in such cases as mine. They offered no relief or assistance whatever, he said; though in the case of a persistently drunken husband, the law was fortunately able to do a good deal for the wife. 'But nothing at all when it's the other way round,' he added; 'a fact which leads to much misery, and not a little crime, among the poorer classes. I'm very sorry for you,' he added; 'but to be frank, I must say that the law will not help you one atom; neither will it offer you any kind of redress if your wife sells up your home once a week. Neither may you legally put her out from your home because of that. Under our law a wife may claim and hold her husband's company until she drives him into the bankruptcy court, or the lunatic asylum--or his grave. It is worse than senseless, but it is the law; and if your business prevents you keeping watch and ward over your wife yourself, the only course is to employ some relative, or a professed caretaker, to do it for you. The law shows a little more common sense where the case is the other way round. A wife can always get a separation order to relieve her of the presence of a persistently drunken husband; and, with it, an order for her maintenance, which he must obey or go to prison.'

So I did not get very much for my six-and-eightpence, beyond an explicit confirmation of the impression already pretty firmly rooted in my mind, that the most burdensome portion of my particular load in life was something which nobody could help me to carry.

By this time Fanny had lost the sense of shame and humiliation which had characterised all her early recoveries, and informed all her good resolutions and frantic promises of amendment. She made no resolutions now, and in place of shame, poor soul, was conscious only of the physical penalties which her excesses brought in their train. These made her very sullen, and, at the same time, very irritable. There were times, as I well knew, when she had no other means of obtaining drink, but yet did obtain it, from that misguided woman--her mother, whose craving she inherited, without a tithe of the brute strength which apparently enabled the older woman to defy all consequences.

I do not think it necessary to set down here precisely the miserable ways in which I saw her habits gradually sap all self-restraint and womanly decency from my wife. The process was gradual, pitilessly inexorable as the growth of a malignant tumour, and a ghastly and humiliating thing to witness. In the case of a woman, my impression is that alcoholism reacts even more directly upon character, and the mental and nervous system, than it does in men. Their fall is more complete. At least, for a man it is more horrible to witness than any degradation of another man.

XIV

In these days it was my habit each evening to make my way as directly as might be from the Advocate office to our home of the moment. There was, of course, always a certain measure of uncertainty in my mind as to what might await me in our rooms; and there were many occasions when my presence there as early as possible was highly desirable. It was my dismal task upon more than two or three occasions to visit police stations, and enter into bail to save my wife from spending a night in the cells.

Naturally, in view of all these circumstances, I remained as much a hermit as though living in Livorno Bay, so far as the social life of my colleagues and of London generally was concerned. During all this time social intercourse was for me confined to Fanny (who became steadily less social in her habits and inclinations) and to occasional meetings with Sidney Heron. Once and again a man at the office would ask me to dine with him (regarding me as a bachelor, of course), and always I felt bound to plead a prior engagement. One night, when Fanny had gone early to bed, feeling wretchedly ill, and sullenly angry because I would have no liquor of any sort on the premises, not even the lager beer which it had been my own habit for some time past to drink with meals, Heron sat with me in our living-room, smoking and staring into the fire. It was late, and something had moved Heron to stir me into giving him the outline of my early life and Australian experiences.

'Yes, you're a queer bird,' he opined, after a long silence. 'And your life confirms my old conviction that, broadly speaking, there are only two kinds of human beings: those who prey--with an "e," and rarely with an "a"--and those who are preyed upon: parasites and their hosts. There are doubtless subdivisions in infinite variety; but I have yet to meet the man or woman who, in essence, is not parasite or host, the preyer or the preyed upon.'

'And I----'

'Oh, clearly, and all along the line, you're the host. Mind, I waste no great sympathy upon you. It is quite an open point which class is the less deserving or the better off. But in your case it is, perhaps, rather a pity, because upon the whole I doubt if your fibre is tough enough to sustain the part. On the other hand, you haven't half enough--well--suction for a successful parasite; and those between are apt to get ground up rather small. My advice to you-- But, Lord, is there any greater folly in all this foolish world than the giving of advice?'

'Never mind. Let's have it.'

'No, I'll not give advice. But I will state what I believe to be a fact; and that is that you would be the better for it if you were sedulously to cultivate a self-regarding policy of laissez-faire. It may be as rotten as you please as a national policy. Our own beloved countrymen are even now, I think, preparing for the world a most convincing demonstration of that. But for certain individuals--you among 'em--it has many points, and, pursued with discretion, is likely to prove highly beneficial.'

'Ah! The let-be policy?'

Heron nodded. 'Of all creeds,' he said, 'perhaps the one that calls for the most rigid self-control--for a certain type of man, the type that most needs its use.'

I had lowered my voice involuntarily, though I knew that Fanny had long since been sleeping heavily. 'Do you realise what it would mean in my particular case, on the domestic side?' I asked.

'Well, yes; I think so.'

'Hardly, my friend. It would mean relinquishing the care of my wife to the police.' There were no secrets between us in this matter.

'Yes, something rather like that, I suppose,' said Heron. 'And don't you think upon the whole they may be rather better equipped for the task?'

'My dear Heron!'

'Oh, of course, that tone's unanswerable. But lay aside the sentimental aspect, and consider the practical logic of it. You might as well see where you really stand, you know. It won't affect your actions, really. You belong to the wrong division of the race. But what are you doing to remedy your wife's case?'

I admitted I was doing nothing. I had tried in many directions, including the clandestine administration of costly specifics, which had merely seemed to rob poor Fanny of all appetite for food, without in any way affecting the lamentable craving which wrecked her life.

'Precisely,' resumed Heron. 'You are doing nothing to remedy it, because there is nothing you are in a position to do. You are merely "standing by," as sailors say, from sentimental motives. It is laissez-faire, of a sort; only, it's an infernally painful and wearing sort for you. It reduces your life to something like her own, without, so far as I can see, benefiting her in the least. I think the police could do as well. In fact, in your place, I should clear out altogether, and give Mrs. Pelly a show. But, failing that, I would at least wash my hands, so to say. I would refuse the situation any predominant place in my mind, join a club and use it, and-- O Lord! what is the use of talking of absolutely hopeless things? I don't know that I'd do anything of the sort, and I do know very well that you won't.'

There fell another silence between us, which lasted several minutes. And then Heron rose to his feet, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and said he must be going. I walked down the road with him, and paused at its corner, where he would pick up an omnibus. The moon emerged from behind a cloud, touching with a delicate sepia some fleecy edge of cumuli.

'Has it ever occurred to you, my innocent, that there is anything in England beyond the metropolitan radius?' asked Heron suddenly. 'Honest, now; have you ever been ten miles from Charing Cross since you landed from that blessed ship?'

'Well, it does seem queer, now you mention it; but I don't believe I have-- Except to Epping Forest, you know. I'm not sure how far that is; but I used often to go there at one time, not lately, but----'

'Before you mortgaged your soul to the Advocate, eh? Though I suppose the more serious mortgage was the one before that. Look here! Bring your wife on Saturday, and meet me at Victoria at ten o'clock. We'll go and have a look at Leith Hill. A tramp will do you both good. Will you come?'

By doing a certain amount of work there on Sunday, I could always absent myself from office on a Saturday. So I agreed to go. On the Friday Fanny seemed unusually calm and well. I was quite excited over the prospect of our little jaunt, and Fanny herself appeared to think cheerfully and kindly of it. In the lodging we occupied at that time I had a tiny bedroom of my own. I woke very early on the Saturday morning, but when I found it was barely five o'clock turned over for another doze. When next I woke it was to find, greatly to my annoyance, that the hour was half-past eight; and there were several little things I wanted to have done before starting for Victoria. I hurried into our sitting-room before dressing, meaning to rouse Fanny, whose room opened from it. But she was not in her bedroom, and returning to the other room I found a note on the table.

'I am not feeling well,' the note said, 'and cannot come with you to-day. So I shall spend the day with mother, and be back here about tea-time.'

For a moment I thought of hurrying round to Mrs. Pelly's, and seeing if I could prevail on Fanny to change her mind. But I hated going to that house, and, of late, I had had some experience of the futility of trying to influence Fanny in any way during these sullen morning hours, when she was very often possessed by a sort of lethargy, any interference with which provoked only excessive irritation.

It was most disappointing. But-- 'Very well, then,' I muttered to myself, 'she must stay with her mother. I can't leave Heron waiting at Victoria.'

So I dressed and proceeded direct to the station, relying upon having a few minutes to spare there during which to break my fast in the refreshment-room.

Heron nodded rather grimly over my explanation of Fanny's absence, and we were both pretty silent during the journey to Dorking. But once out in the open, and tramping along a country road, we breathed deeper of an air clean enough to dispel town-bred languors. I felt my spirits rise, and we began to talk. The day was admirable, beginning with light mists, and ripening, by the time we began our tramp, into that mellow splendour which October does at times vouchsafe, especially in the gloriously wooded country which lies about Leith Hill.

The foliage, the occasional scent of burning wood--always a talisman for one who has slept in the open--glimpses of new-fallowed fields of an exquisite rose-madder hue, bracken and heather underfoot, and overhead blue sky sweetly diversified by snowy piles of cloud--these and a thousand other natural delights combined to enlarge one's heart, ease one's mind, and arouse one's dormant instinct to live, to laugh, and to enjoy. Worries rolled back from me. I responded jovially to Heron's grim quips, and felt more heartily alive than I had felt for years.

Having walked swingingly for four or five hours we sat down in a pleasant inn to a nondescript meal, at something like the eighteenth-century dining hour; consuming large quantities of cold boiled beef, salad, cheese, home-baked bread, and brown ale. (I had learned now to drink beer, on such occasions as this, at all events; and did it with a childish sense of holiday 'swagger.' Its associations with rural life pleased me. But in the town I was annoyed to find that even half a glass of it was apt to make my head ache villainously.) We sat and smoked, talking lazily in the twilight; missed one train, and walked leisurely to the next station to catch a later one.

The approach to London rather chilled and saddened me by the sharp demand it seemed to make for the laying aside of calm reflection or cheerful conversation, and the taking up of stern realities, practical considerations--the hard, concrete facts of daily life. The outlines of the huddled houses, the moving lights of thronged streets, the Town-- It seemed to grip me by the shoulder.

'Come! Wake up from your fancies. Been laughing, joking, chatting, drawing deep breaths, have you? Ah, well, here am I. You know me. Hear the ring of the hurrying horses' feet on my hard ways? See the anxious ferret faces of my workers? I am Reality. I am your master, and the world's master. You may escape me for a day, and dream you are a free man in the open. Grrrr!--' The train jars to a standstill. 'That may be well enough for a dream; but I am Reality. Come! There's no time here for reflection. Pick up your load. Get on; get on; or I'll smash you down in my gutters, where my human wastage lies!'

That is how cities have always spoken to me as I have entered them from the country. And yet--and yet, most of my life has been spent within their confines. Long imprisonment makes men fear liberty, they say. But how could a man fear the kindly country and its liberty for reflection? And, attaining to it, how could he possibly desire return to the noisy, crowded cells of the city? Impossible, surely, unless of course the city offered him a living, his life; and the country--calm and beautiful--refused it. And that perhaps is rather often the position, for your sedentary man, at all events; your modern, who cannot dig and is ashamed to beg--a numerous and ever increasing body.

Big Ben struck the hour of eight as we trundled past into Whitehall on the top of an omnibus. I thought of Fanny with some self-reproach. She would have reached the lodgings by about five, and our evening meal hour was seven. I hoped she had not waited without her meal. I left Heron on the 'bus, for he had farther than I to go, and hurried along to No. 46 Kent Street--the dingy house in which we had been living now for a month or more.

Fanny was not there, and, to my surprise, the landlady told me she had not been in all day, save for five minutes in the early afternoon, after which she went out carrying a parcel. I went to my bedroom for an overcoat, as the night was chilly. I possessed two of these garments at the time--one rather heavy and warm, the other a light coat. Both were missing from their accustomed pegs.

'Tcha! Now what does this mean?' I growled to myself; knowing quite well what it meant. 'And I take holidays in the country! I might have known better.'

And with that--all the brightness of the day forgotten now--I hurried out, bound for Howard Street and Mrs. Pelly's house.

But Mrs. Pelly had no idea as to her daughter's whereabouts. It seemed Fanny had left her before three o'clock, intending to go home.

Then began a search of the kind which had become only too familiar with me of late. I suppose I must have entered upon scores of such dismal quests since my marriage. First, I visited some twenty or thirty different 'gin-mills.' (In one of them I stayed a few minutes to eat a piece of bread and cheese.) Then I went to two police stations, at the two opposite ends of that locality. Finally, I tramped back to Kent Street, thinking to find Fanny there, and picturing in advance the condition in which I should find her. The most I ventured to hope was that she had been able to reach her room without assistance. But she had not been there at all.

I went out again into the street, somewhat at a loss. It was now past ten o'clock. After some hesitation I caught a passing omnibus and journeyed back towards Howard Street, near which stood a third police station, which I had not before visited.

'Wait there a minute, will you?' said the officer to whom my inquiry here was addressed. A moment later I heard his voice from an adjacent corridor; 'Has the doctor gone?' it asked. I did not hear the answer. But a minute or two later a tall man in a frock coat entered the room and walked up to me. I could see the top of a stethoscope protruding from one of his inner breast-coat pockets.

'Name of Freydon?' he said tersely.

'Yes.'

'Ah! Will you step this way, please, to my room?'

And, as we passed into an inner room, he wheeled upon me with a look of grave sympathy in his eyes. 'I have serious news for you, Mr. Freydon; if--if it is your wife who is here.'

Then I knew. Something in the doctor's grave eyes and meaning voice told me. It was not really necessary for me to ask. I knew quite certainly, and had no wish, no intention to say anything. My subconscious self apparently was bent upon explicitness. For, next moment, I heard my own voice, some little distance from me, saying, in quite a low tone:

'My God! My God! My God!' And then: 'You don't mean that she is dead?'

But I knew all the time.

Then I heard the doctor speaking. His body was close to me, but his voice, like my own, came from some distance away.

'A woman was brought here by a constable this afternoon ... helpless ... intoxication.... Did your wife ... is she addicted to drink?' I may have nodded. 'There was a pawnticket in the name of Freydon.... She passed away less than an hour ago.... The condition ... heart undoubtedly accelerated ... alcoholism ... a very short time, in any case.... Medically, an inquest would be quite unnecessary, but.... Will you come with me, and ...'

From a long way off now these phrases trickled into my consciousness, the sense of them somewhat blurred and interrupted by a continuous buzzing noise in my head. We walked along dead white passages, and down steps. We stopped at length where a man in uniform stood at a door, which he opened for us at a sign from the doctor. Inside, a woman was bending over a low pallet, and on the little bed was my wife Fanny. A greyish sheet was drawn over her body to the chin. I think it was so drawn up as we entered the room. I stared down upon Fanny's calm, white face, in which there was now a refinement, a pathetic dignity, a something delicate and womanly which I had not seen there before; not even in the early days, when gentle prettiness had been its quality.

The thought that flashed through my mind as I stood there was not the sort of thought that would be associated with such a scene. The buzzing noise was still going on in my head, but yet I was conscious of a vast silence all about me; and looking down upon my wife's face, I thought:

'Death has certainly been courteous, considerate, to poor Fanny.' _

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