CHAPTER XV.
IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS.
Not since the incident of the dressing-bag had Harry heard a word ofLowndes. He had no idea what had become of that erratic financier or ofhis daughter, and as to the former he no longer greatly cared. You mayhave the knack of carrying others with you, but it is dangerous so tocarry them against their own convictions; a reaction is inevitable, andHarry had undergone one against Gordon Lowndes. In the warmth of themoment he had freely forgiven the pawning of his bag, but he found itharder to confirm that forgiveness on subsequent and cool reflection.And the visit to Guildford had something to do with this. It hadreplaced old standards, it had brightened old ideals; and the influenceof Mr. Innes was directly antagonistic to that of Lowndes. Add thescholastic disappointments and the literary attempts, and it will beobvious that in the lad's life there had been little room of late forthe promoter of the H.C.S. & T.S.A.
But of the promoter's daughter Harry Ringrose had thought often enough.His mind had flown to her in many a difficulty, and it was only hisrevised view of Lowndes which had kept him from going down to Richmondfor her sympathy upon the fate of the manuscript for which she wasresponsible. Even this afternoon he had thought of her in theUnderground, side by side with his mother, as the one other person whomhe longed to tell of his success. So that it seemed little short of amiracle to find these two together.
Fanny had already been shown the first _Tiddler_ verses, and she nowshared Mrs. Ringrose's joy over the half-sovereign and the news of asecond accepted contribution. It was delightful to Harry to see herkind face again, to see it happy, and to remember (as he suddenly did)in what trouble he had seen it last. And now he noticed that the girlwas brightly dressed, with new gloves and a brilliant sunshade, and hecould not but ask after her father and his affairs.
It appeared that the Highland Crofters' Salmon and Trout SupplyAssociation, Limited, was still on the tapis, but under another nameand other patronage. The Earl of Banff was no longer connected with theenterprise, but in his stead Lowndes had secured the co-operation ofone the Hon. Pelham Tankervell, a personage who appeared to be on afriendly footing with the light and leading of both Houses ofParliament. This Harry gathered from a sheaf of most interestingletters which Fanny Lowndes had brought with her at her father'srequest. These letters were addressed to Mr. Tankervell by the mostillustrious persons, nearly all of whom gave that gentleman permissionto use their distinguished names as patrons of the Crofter Fisheries,Limited, which was the old Company's new name. It was difficult toglance over the letters without imbibing some degree of confidence, andit was plain to Harry that Miss Lowndes herself had more than of old.She told him that the Earl's solicitors had compounded with her fatherfor a substantial sum, and she pointed to her gorgeous parasol as oneof the cab-load of purchases with which her father had driven homeafter cashing the lawyers' cheque. It was plain that the little houseon Richmond Hill was in much better case than heretofore; indeed, FannyLowndes told Harry as much, though she did add that she no more wishedto see him Secretary of the Crofter Fisheries than of the H.C.S. &T.S.A.
"But you believe in it now?" he could not help saying.
"More than I did--decidedly."
"Then why should you dislike to see me in it?"
"You are fit for something better; and--and I think that after this Mr.Tankervell will expect to be made Secretary."
Harry was neither surprised nor vexed to hear it; but he was thinkingless of this last sentence than of the last but one.
"You call writing for the _Tiddler_ something better?"
"For you--I do. It is a beginning, at any rate."
Until her train went he was telling her of his prose flights andfailures, and she was bemoaning her share in one of them. The HighStreet seemed a lonely place as he walked home to the flat. Yet the daywas still the happiest that he had spent in London.
The third week he sent a couple of offerings to _Tommy Tiddler_, butonly one of them got in. He tried them with two again. Meanwhile therewas an unexpected development in an almost forgotten quarter.
After nearly a month's interval, there came one more thin envelope fromthe scholastic agents; and this time it was a Mrs. Bickersteth, of theHollies, Teddington, who required a resident master immediately, toteach very little boys. Very little also was the salary offered. It wasthirty pounds; and Harry was for tossing the letter into the first firethey had sat over in the flat, when his mother looked up from the sockswhich she was knitting for him, and took an unexpected line.
"I wish you to apply for it," said she.
"What, leave you for thirty pounds, when I can make twenty-six athome?"
"That will make fifty-six; for you would be sure to have some time toyourself, and you say the verses only take you an hour on the average.At any rate I wish you to apply, my boy. I will tell you why if theytake you."
"Well, they won't; so here goes--to please you."
He sat down and dashed off an answer there and then, but with none ofthe care which he had formerly expended on such compositions. Andinstead of the old unrest until he knew his fate, he forthwith thoughtno more about the matter. So the telegram took him all aback nextmorning. He was to meet Mrs. Bickersteth at three o'clock at theagents'. By four he had the offer of the vacant mastership in herschool.
It was the irony of Harry's fate that a month ago he would have jumpedat the chance and flown home on the wings of ecstasy; now he asked forgrace to consult his mother, but promised to wire his decision thatevening, and went home very sorry that he had applied.
Mrs. Ringrose sighed to see his troubled face.
"Do you mean to tell me it has come to nothing?"
"No; the billet's mine if I want it."
"And you actually hesitated?"
"Yes, mother, because I do not want it. That's the fact of the matter."
Mrs. Ringrose sat silent and looked displeased.
"Is the woman not nice?" she asked presently.
"She seemed all right; rather distinguished in her way; but the hoursare atrocious, and I made that my excuse for thinking twice aboutaccepting such a salary. I have promised to send a telegram thisevening. But, oh, mother, I don't want to leave you; not to go to adame's school and thirty pounds a year!"
"You would get your board as well."
"But you would be all alone."
"I could go away for a little. Your Uncle Spencer has asked me to go tothe seaside next month with your aunt and the girls. I--I think itwould do me good."
"You could leave me in charge, and I would write verses all the time."
"It would be much cheaper to shut up the flat. Then we should be reallysaving. And--Harry--it is necessary!"
Then the truth came out, and with it the real reason why Mrs. Ringrosewished him to accept the cheap mastership at Teddington. She was tryingto keep house upon a hundred and fifty a year; so far she was failingterribly. The rent of the flat was sixty-five; that left eighty-fivepounds a year, or but little over thirty shillings a week for allexpenses. It was true they kept no servant, but the porter's wifecharged five shillings a week, and when the washing was paid there wasseldom more than a pound over, even when the stockings and thehandkerchiefs were done at home. A pound a week to feed and clothe thetwo of them! It sounded ample--the tailors had not even sent in theirbill yet--and yet somehow it was lamentably insufficient. Mrs. Ringrosehad been a rich woman all her life until now; that was the whole secretof the matter. Even Harry, ready as he still was for an extravagance,was in everyday minutiae more practical than his dear mother. She nevercalled in the porter without giving him a shilling. She seldom paid foranything at the door without slipping an additional trifle into therecipient's hand. And once when some Highlanders played their bagpipesand danced their sword-dances in the back street below, she flung aflorin through the window because she had no smaller silver, and togive coppers she was ashamed.
Harry was the last to take exception to traits which he had himselfinherited, but he had long for
eseen that disaster must come unless hecould earn something to add to their income, and so balance the breadhe ate and the tea he swallowed. And now disaster had come, insomuchthat the next quarter's money was condemned, and Harry's duty wasclear. Yet still he temporised.
"A month ago it would have been bad enough," said he; "but surely wemight hang together now that I have got a start. Ten bob a week! Youshall see me creep up to a pound and then to two!"
"You must first make sure of the ten bob," said Mrs. Ringrose, who hada quaint way of echoing her son's slang, and whose sanguine temperamenthad been somewhat damped by late experience.
"I am sure of it. Are not three weeks running good enough?"
"But you say they only take you an hour, and that you could spare atthe school, even though you had to do it in your own bedroom. Besides,it need only be for one term if you didn't like it; to economise tillChristmas, that is all I ask."
Harry knew what he ought to say. He was troubled and vexed at his ownperverseness. Yet all his instincts told him that he was finding afooting at last--humble enough, Heaven knew!--on the ladder to which hefelt most drawn. And a man does not go against his instincts in amoment.
"Come, my boy," urged Mrs. Ringrose. "Send the telegram and be donewith it."
"Wait!" cried Harry, as the bell rang. "There's the post. It may bethat my story is accepted."
He meant the story which never was accepted, but whose fitness for theflames he had yet to realise. The letter, however, did not refer toeither of his prose attempts. It was from the Editor of _TommyTiddler_, enclosing both sets of verses which Harry had sent him thatweek, and very civilly stating that they were not quite up to hiscontributor's "usual mark."
Harry went straight out of the flat and was gone some minutes.
"I've sent that telegram," said he when he came back. "I should havetold you that the term begins this next Saturday, and I've got to bethere on Friday evening."
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