Mrs. Randall called twice at Mulberry Street next rent-day, but nobody answered her knocks. Old Jack, possessed by a misty notion, born of use, that rent was constitutionally demandable only on Monday morning, called no more for a week. But on Thursday evening a stout little stranger, with a bald head which he wiped continually, came to the Randalls to ask if the tenant of Twenty-seven Mulberry Street was Mr. Joe Parsons. Assured that it was, he nodded, said, “Thanks! that’s all,” wiped his head again, and started to go. Then he paused, and “Pay his rent regular?” he asked. Old Jack hesitated. “Ah, thought so,” said the little stranger. “He’s a wrong ’un. I’ve got a bit o’ paper for ’im.” And he clapped on his hat with the handkerchief in it and vanished.
VII
Old Jack felt unhappy, for a landlord. He and the missis reproached themselves for not asking the little stranger certain questions; but he had gone. Next Monday morning old Jack took another half-day, and went to Mulberry Street himself. From appearances, he assured himself that a belief, entertained by his missis, that the upper part of his house was being sublet, was well founded. He watched awhile from a corner, until a dirty child kicked at the door, and it was opened. Then he went across and found the draggle-tailed woman who had answered Mrs. Randall before, in every respect the same to look at, except that not one eye was black but two. Old Jack, with some abruptness, demanded his rent of her, addressing her as Mrs. Parsons. Without disclaiming the name, she pleaded with meek uneasiness that Mr. Parsons really wasn’t at home, and she didn’t know when to expect him. At last, finding this ineffectual, she produced four and sixpence: begging him with increasing agitation to take that on account and call again.
Old Jack took the money, and called again at seven. Custom or law or what-not, he would wait for no Monday morning now. The door was open, and a group of listening children stood about it. From within came a noise of knocks and thuds and curses—sometimes a gurgle. Old Jack asked a small boy, whose position in the passage betokened residence, what was going forward. “It’s the man downstairs,” said the boy, “a-givin’ of it to ’is wife for payin’ awy the lodgers’ rent.”
At this moment Mr. Joe Parsons appeared in the passage. The children, who had once or twice commented in shouts, dispersed. “I’ve come for my rent,” said old Jack.
Mr. Joe Parsons saw no retreat. So he said, “Rent? Ain’t you ’ad it? I don’t bother about things in the ’ouse. Come again when my wife’s in.”
“She is in,” rejoined old Jack, “an’ you’ve been a-landin’ of ’er for payin’ me what little she ’as. Come, you pay me what you owe me, and take a week’s notice now. I want my house kep’ respectable.”
Mr. Joe Parsons had no other shift. “You be damned,” he said. “Git out.”
“What?” gasped old Jack—for to tell a landlord to get out of his own house!… “What?”
“Why git out? Y’ ought to know better than comin’ ’ere askin’ for money you ain’t earnt.”
“Ain’t earnt? What d’ye mean?”
“What I say. Y’ ain’t earnt it. It’s you blasted lan’lords as sucks the blood o’ the workers. You go an’ work for your money.”
Old Jack was confounded. “Why—what—how d’ye think I can pay the rates, an’ everythink?”
“I don’t care. You’ll ’ave to pay ’em, an’ I wish they was ’igher. They ought to be the same as the rent, an’ that ’ud do away with fellers like you. Go on: you do your damdest an’ get your rent best way you can.”
“But what about upstairs? You’re lettin’ it out an’ takin’ the rent there. I—”
“That’s none o’ your business. Git out, will ye?” They had gradually worked over the doorstep, and Randall was on the pavement. “I sha’n’t pay, an’ I sha’n’t go, an’ ye can do what ye like; so it’s no good your stoppin’—unless you want to fight. Eh—do ye?” And Mr. Parsons put a foot over the threshold.
Old Jack had not fought for many years. It was low. For a landlord outside his own house it was, indeed, disgraceful. But it was quite dark now, and there was scarcely a soul in the street. Perhaps nobody would know, and this man deserved something for himself. He looked up the street again, and then, “Well, I ain’t so young as I was,” he said, “but I won’t disappoint ye. Come on.”
Mr. Joe Parsons stepped within and slammed the door.
VIII
Old Jack went home less happy than ever. He had no notion what to do. Difficulties of private life were often discussed and argued out in the workshop, but there he had become too unpopular to ask for anything in the nature of sympathy or advice. Not only would he lend no money, but he refused to stand treat on rent days. Also, there was a collection on behalf of men on strike at another factory, to which he gave nothing; and he had expressed the strongest disapproval of an extension of that strike, and his own intention to continue working if it happened. For what would become of all his plans and his savings if his wages ceased? Wherefore there was no other man in the shop so unpopular as old Jack, and in a workshop unpopularity is a bad thing.
He called on a professional rent-receiver and seller-up. This man knew Mr. Joe Parsons very well. He never had furniture upon which a profitable distress might be levied. But if he took lodgers, and they were quiet people, something might be got out of them—if the job were made worth while. But this was not at all what old Jack wanted.
Soon after it occurred to him to ask advice of the secretary of the building society. This was a superficial young man, an auctioneer’s clerk until evening, who had no disposition to trouble himself about matters outside his duties. Still, he went so far as to assure old Jack that turning out a tenant who meant to stay was not a simple job. If you didn’t mind losing the rent it might be done by watching until the house was left ungarrisoned, getting in, putting the furniture into the street, and keeping the tenant out. With this forlorn hope old Jack began to spend his leisure about Mulberry Street: ineffectually, for Mrs. Parsons never came out while he was there. Once he saw the man, and offered to forgive him the rent if he would leave: a proposal which Mr. Parsons received with ostentatious merriment. At this old Jack’s patience gave out, and he punched his tenant on the ear. Whereat the latter, suddenly whitening in the face, said something about the police, and walked away at a good pace.
IX
The strike extended, as it was expected and designed to do. The men at old Jack’s factory were ordered out, and came, excepting only old Jack himself. He was desperate. Since he had ventured on that cursed investment everything had gone wrong: but he would not lose his savings if mere personal risk would preserve them. Moreover, a man of fifty is not readily re-employed, once out; and as the firm was quite ready to keep one hand on to oil and see that things were in order, old Jack stayed: making his comings and goings late to dodge the pickets, and approaching subtly by a railway-arch stable and a lane thereunto. It was not as yet a very great strike, and with care these things could be done. Still, he was sighted and chased twice, and he knew that, if the strike lasted, and feeling grew hotter, he would be attacked in his own house. If only he could hold on through the strike, and by hook or crook keep the outgoings paid, he would attend to Mr. Parsons afterward.
X
One Saturday afternoon, as Mrs. Randall was buying greens and potatoes, old Jack, waiting without, strolled toward a crowd standing about a speaker. A near approach discovered the speaker to be Mr. Joe Parsons, who was saying:—
“—strike pay is little enough at the time, of course, but don’t forget what it will lead to! An’ strike pay does very well, my frien’s, when the party knows ’ow to lay it out, an’ don’t go passin’ it on to the lan’lord. Don’t give it away. When the lan’lord comes o’ Monday mornin’, tell ’im (polite as you like) that there’s nothink for ’im till there’s more for you. Let the lan’lord earn ’is money, like me an’ you. Let the lan’lords pay a bit towards this ’ere strik
e as well as the other blaggards, the imployers. Lan’lords gits quite enough out o’ you, my feller workers, when—”
“They don’t git much out o’ you!” shouted old Jack in his wrath; and then felt sorry he had spoken. For everybody looked at him, and he knew some of the faces.
“Ho!” rejoined the speaker, mincingly. “There’s a gent there as seems to want to address this ’ere meetin’. P’r’aps you’ll ’ave the kindness to step up ’ere, my friend, an’ say wot you got to say plain.” And he looked full at old Jack, pointing with his finger.
Old Jack fidgeted, wishing himself out of it. “You pay me what you owe me,” he growled sulkily.
“As this ’ere individual, after intruding ’isself on this peaceful meetin’, ain’t got anythink to say for ’isself,” pursued Mr. Joe Parsons, “I’ll explain things for ’im. That’s my lan’lord, that is: look at ’im! ’e comes ’angin’ round my door waitin’ for a chance to turn my pore wife an’ children out o’ ’ouse and ’ome. ’e follers me in the street an’ tries to intimidate me. ’e comes ’ere, my feller workers, as a spy, an’ to try an’ poison your minds agin me as devotes my ’ole life to your int’rests. That’s the sort o’ man, that’s the sort o’ lan’lord ’e is. But ’e’s somethink more than a greedy, thievin’, overfed lan’lord, my frien’s, an’ I’ll tell you wot. ’E’s a dirty, crawlin’ blackleg; that’s wot else ’e is. ’E’s the on’y man as wouldn’t come out o’ Maidment’s; an’ ’e’s workin’ there now, skulkin’ in an’ out in the dark—a dirty rat! Now you all know very well I won’t ’ave nothink to do with any violence or intimidation. It’s agin my principles, although I know there’s very often great temptation, an’ it’s impossible to identify in a crowd, an’ safe to be very little evidence. But this I will say, that when a dirty low rat, not content with fattenin’ on starvin’ tenants, goes an’ takes the bread out o’ ’is feller men’s mouths, like that bleedin’ blackleg—blackleg!—blackleg!—”
Old Jack was down. A dozen heavy boots were at work about his head and belly. In from the edge of the crowd a woman tore her way, shedding potatoes as she ran, and screaming; threw herself upon the man on the ground; and shared the kicks. Over the shoulders of the kickers whirled the buckle-end of a belt. “One for the old cow,” said a voice.
XI
When a man is lying helpless on his back, with nothing in hand, he pays nothing off a building society mortgage, because, as his wife pawns the goods of the house, the resulting money goes for necessaries. To such a man the society shows no useless grace: especially when the secretary has a friend always ready to take over a forfeited house at forced sale price. So the lease of Twenty-seven vanished, and old Jack’s savings with it.
And one day, some months later, old Jack, supported by the missis and a stick, took his way across the workhouse forecourt. There was a door some twenty yards from that directly before them, and two men came out of it, carrying a laden coffin of plain deal.
“Look there, Jack,” the missis said, as she checked her step; “what a common caufin!” And indeed there was a distinct bulge in the bottom.
OTHER STORIES
THE THING IN THE UPPER ROOM
A shadow hung ever over the door, which stood black in the depth of its arched recess, like an unfathomable eye under a frowning brow. The landing was wide and panelled, and a heavy rail, supported by a carved balustrade, stretched away in alternate slopes and levels down the dark staircase, past other doors, and so to the courtyard and the street. The other doors were dark also; but it was with a difference. That top landing was lightest of all, because of the skylight; and perhaps it was largely by reason of contrast that its one doorway gloomed so black and forbidding The doors below opened and shut, slammed, stood ajar. Men and women passed in and out, with talk and human sounds—sometimes even with laughter or a snatch of song; but the door on the top landing remained shut and silent through weeks and months. For, in truth, the logement had an ill name, and had been untenanted for years. Long even before the last tenant had occupied it, the room had been regarded with fear and aversion, and the end of that last tenant had in no way lightened the gloom that hung about the place.
The house was so old that its weather-washed face may well have looked down on the bloodshed of St. Bartholomew’s, and the haunted room may even have earned its ill name on that same day of death. But Paris is a city of cruel history, and since the old mansion rose proud and new, the hôtel of some powerful noble, almost any year of the centuries might have seen the blot fall on that upper room that had left it a place of loathing and shadows. The occasion was long forgotten, but the fact remained; whether or not some horror of the ancien régime or some enormity of the Terror was enacted in that room was no longer to be discovered; but nobody would live there, nor stay beyond that gloomy door one second longer than he could help. It might be supposed that the fate of the solitary tenant within living memory had something to do with the matter—and, indeed, his end was sinister enough; but long before his time the room had stood shunned and empty. He, greatly daring, had taken no more heed of the common terror of the room than to use it to his advantage in abating the rent; and he had shot himself a little later, while the police were beating at his door to arrest him on a charge of murder. As I have said, his fate may have added to the general aversion from the place, though it had no in no way originated it; and now ten years had passed, and more, since his few articles of furniture had been carried away and sold; and nothing had been carried in to replace them.
When one is twenty-five, healthy, hungry and poor, one is less likely to be frightened from a cheap lodging by mere headshakings than might be expected in other circumstances. Attwater was twenty-five, commonly healthy, often hungry, and always poor. He came to live in Paris because, from his remembrance of his student days, he believed he could live cheaper there than in London; while it was quite certain that he would not sell fewer pictures, since he had never yet sold one.
It was the concierge of a neighbouring house who showed Attwater the room. The house of the room itself maintained no such functionary, though its main door stood open day and night. The man said little, but his surprise at Attwater’s application was plain to see. Monsieur was English? Yes. The logement was convenient, though high, and probably now a little dirty, since it had not been occupied recently. Plainly, the man felt it to be no business of his to enlighten an unsuspecting foreigner as to the reputation of the place; and if he could let it there would be some small gratification from the landlord, though, at such a rent, of course a very small one indeed.
But Attwater was better informed than the concierge supposed. He had heard the tale of the haunted room, vaguely and incoherently, it is true, from the little old engraver of watches on the floor below, by whom he had been directed to the concierge. The old man had been voluble and friendly, and reported that the room had a good light, facing north-east—indeed, a much better light than he, engraver of watches, enjoyed on the floor below. So much so that, considering this advantage and the much lower rent, he himself would have taken the room long ago, except—well, except for other things. Monsieur was a stranger, and perhaps had no fear to inhabit a haunted chamber; but that was its reputation, as everybody in the quarter knew; it would be a misfortune, however, to a stranger to take the room without suspicion, and to undergo unexpected experiences. Here, however, the old man checked himself, possibly reflecting that too much information to inquirers after the upper room might offend his landlord. He hinted as much, in fact, hoping that his friendly warning would not be allowed to travel farther. As to the precise nature of the disagreeable manifestations in the room, who could say? Perhaps there were really none at all. People said this and that. Certainly, the place had been untenanted for many years, and he would not like to stay in it himself. But it might be the good fortune of monsieur to break the spell, and if monsieur was resolved to defy the revenant, he wished monsieur the highest success and
happiness.
So much for the engraver of watches; and now the concierge of the neighbouring house led the way up the stately old panelled staircase, swinging his keys in his hand, and halted at last before the dark door in the frowning recess. He turned the key with some difficulty, pushed open the door, and stood back with an action of something not wholly deference, to allow Attwater to enter first.
A sort of small lobby had been partitioned off at some time, though except for this the logement was of one large room only. There was something unpleasant in the air of the place—not a smell, when one came to analyse one’s sensations, though at first it might seem so. Attwater walked across to the wide window and threw it open. The chimneys and roofs of many houses of all ages straggled before him, and out of the welter rose the twin towers of St. Sulpice, scarred and grim.
Air the room as one might, it was unpleasant; a sickly, even a cowed, feeling, invaded one through all the senses—or perhaps through none of them. The feeling was there, though it was not easy to say by what channel it penetrated. Attwater was resolved to admit none but a common-sense explanation, and blamed the long closing of door and window; and the concierge, standing uneasily near the door, agreed that that must be it. For a moment Attwater wavered, despite himself. But the rent was very low, and, low as it was, he could not afford a sou more. The light was good, though it was not a top-light, and the place was big enough for his simple requirements. Attwater reflected that he should despise himself ever after if he shrank from the opportunity; it would be one of those secret humiliations that will rise again and again in a man’s memory, and make him blush in solitude. He told the concierge to leave door and window wide open for the rest of the day, and he clinched the bargain.
The Arthur Morrison Mystery Page 103