by Hugh Walpole
Now he had no other thought. The streets of the town were deserted, clean, smelling of the fields, hay-carts, and primroses, with the darkness broken by dim lamps, and a very slender moon. His heart was full, his throat burning. He crossed the market-place and suddenly bent down and kissed the worn stones of the Tower. There was no one to see.
He was in the station at twenty minutes past seven. The platform was long and cold and deserted, but in the waiting-room was Mr. Zanti enveloped in an enormous black coat.
“Ah, my dear boy, this is indeed splendid. And ‘ave you said farewell to your father?”
“Yes, I’ve said good-bye to every one,” he answered slowly. Suddenly he would have given all the wide world and his prospects in it not to be going. The terrors of Scaw House were as nothing beside that little grey town with the waves breaking on the jetty, the Grey Hill above it, the twisted cobbled streets.
The morning wind blew up the platform, the train rolled in; there were porters, but Mr. Zanti had only a big brown bag which he kept with him.
Soon they were in corners facing one another. As the train swept past the Tower the grey dawn was breaking into blue over the houses that rose, tier by tier, to the sky over the grey rolling breakers, over the hills beyond ... Cornwall!
Poor Peter stared with passionate eyes as the vision passed.
“London soon,” said Mr. Zanti, gaily.
CHAPTER XI
ALL KINDS OF FOG IN THE CHARING CROSS ROAD
I
Towards the middle of the dim afternoon as the first straight pale houses began to close in upon the train, a lady and gentleman on the opposite side to Peter were discovered by him, as he awoke from a long sleep, to be talking:
“Well, my dear Lucy, how we are ever to get on if you want to do these absurd things I don’t know. In London one must do as London does. In the country of course...”
He was short, breathless and a little bald. The lady was young and very upset.
“But, Henry, what does it matter?”
“What does it matter? My dear Lucy, in London everything matters—”
She was excited. “In Kensington perhaps, but in London—”
“Allow me, my dear Lucy, to decide for you. When you are my age—”
Peter went to sleep again.
II
The vast iron-girdled station was very dark and Mr. Zanti explained that this was because, outside, there was a Fog —
“The Fog,” he added, as though it had been a huge and ferocious animal, “is very yellow and has eaten up London. It will take us a very long time to find our home.”
To Peter, short and square, in his rough suit shouldering his bag, this was all as the infernal regions. The vast place towered high, into misty distances above him. Trains, like huge beasts, stretched their limbs into infinity; screams, piercing and angry, broke suddenly the voices and busy movement that flooded the place with sounds. He was jostled and pushed aside and people turned and swore at him and a heated porter ran a truck into his legs. And through it and above it all the yellow fog came twisting in coils from the dark street beyond and every one coughed and choked and cursed England.
Mr. Zanti, after five minutes’ angry pursuit, caught a reluctant and very shabby four-wheeler, and they both climbed into its cavernous depths and Peter’s nose was filled with something that had leather and oranges and paper bags and whisky in it; he felt exactly as though Mr. Zanti (looking very like an ogre in the mysterious yellow light with his bowler on the back of his head and mopping his face with a huge crimson handkerchief) were decoying him away to some terrible fastness where it was always dark and smelly.
And indeed that first vision of London, seen through the grimy windows of the cab, was terrible enough. The cab moved a little, stopped, moved again; it seemed that they would be there for ever and they exchanged no word. There were no buildings to be seen; a vast wall of darkness surrounded him and ever and again, out of the heart of it, a great cauldron of fire flamed and by the side of it there were wild, agitated faces — and again darkness. On every side of the stumbling cab there was noise — voices shouting, women screaming, the rumbling of wheels, the plunging of horses’ hoofs; sometimes things brushed against their cab — once Peter thought that they were down because they were jerked right forward against the opposite seats. And then suddenly, in the most wonderful way, they would plunge into silence, a silence so deep and cavernous that it was more fearful than those other noises had been, and the yellow darkness seemed to crowd upon them with a closer eagerness and it was as though they were driving over the edge of the world. Then the noises returned, for a moment the fog lifted showing houses, rising like rocks from the sea sheer about them on every side, then darkness again and the cab stopped with a jerk.
“Ah, good,” said Mr. Zanti, rolling his red handkerchief into a ball. “’Ere we are, my young friend — Mr. Peter, after you, please.”
Before him a light faintly glimmered and towards this, after stumbling on the slippery pavement, he made his way. He found himself in a bookshop lighted with gas that hissed and spit like an angry cat; the shop was low and stuffy but its walls were covered with books that stretched into misty fog near the ceiling. Behind a dingy counter a man was sitting. This man struck Peter’s attention at once because of the enormous size of his head and the amount of hair that covered it — starting out of the mist and obscurity of the shop, this head looked like some strange fungus, and from the heart of it there glittered two very bright eyes.
Peter, standing awkwardly in the middle of the shop, gazed at this head and was speechless.
Outside, Mr. Zanti could be heard disputing with the cabman.
“You can go and be damned — ze bags were not on ze outside — Zat is plenty for your pay and you be damned—”
The shop door closed with a bang shutting out the fog and Mr. Zanti filled the little bookshop. He seemed taller and larger than he had been in Cornwall and his voice was sharper. The head removed itself from the counter and Peter saw that it belonged to a small man with a hump who came forward to Mr. Zanti very humbly.
“Ah, Gottfried,” said Zanti, “you well?”
“Very, sir,” answered the little man, bowing a little and smiling; his voice was guttural with a very slight accent.
“This is Mr. Peter Westcott. ’E will work here and ‘elp you with ze books. ’E is a friend of mine and you will be kind to him. Mr. Peter, zis is Herr Gottfried Hanz — I owe ’im much — ver’ clever man.”
They shook hands and Peter liked the pair of eyes that gazed into his.
Then Mr. Zanti said, “Come, I will show you ze rest of ze place. It is not a mansion, you will find.”
Indeed it was not. Behind the shop there was a room, brown and green, with two windows that looked on to a yard, so Mr. Zanti said. There was no furniture in it save a table and some chairs; a woman was spreading a cloth on the table as they came in. This woman had grey hair that escaped its pins and fell untidily about her shoulders. She was very pale, tall and thin and her most striking features were her piercing black eyes and with these she stared at Peter.
“Zis is Mrs. Dantzig,” said Mr. Zanti, “an old friend — Mr. Peter Westcott, Mrs. Dantzig. ’E will work wiz us.”
The woman said nothing but nodded her head and continued her work. They passed out of the room. Stairs ran both up and down.
“What is down there?” asked Peter.
“Ah, zat is ze kitchen,” said Mr. Zanti, laughing. Upstairs there was a clean and neat bedroom with a large bed in it, an old sofa and two chairs.
“Zis is where I sleep,” said Mr. Zanti. “For a night or two until you ‘ave discovered a lodging you shall sleep on zat sofa. Zay will make it whilst we ‘ave supper.”
It was now late and Peter was very very tired. Downstairs there was much bread and butter and bacon and eggs, and beer. The woman waited upon them but they were all very silent and Peter was too sleepy to be hungry.
The table was cleared
and Mr. Zanti sat smoking his pipe and talking to the woman. Peter sat there, nodding, and he thought that their conversation was in a foreign tongue and he thought that they looked at him and that the woman was angry about something — but the sleep always gained upon him — he could not keep it away.
At last a hand was upon his shoulder and he was led up to bed.
He tumbled out of his clothes and his last impression was of Mr. Zanti standing in front of him, looking vast and very solemn in a blue cotton night-shirt.
“Peter,” Mr. Zanti seemed to be saying, “you see in me, one, two, a hundred men.... All my life I seek adventure — fun — and I find it — but there ‘as not been room for ze affections. Then I find you — I love you as my son and I say ‘Come to my bookshop’ — But only ze bookshop mind you — you are there for ze books and because I care for you — I care for you ver’ much, Peter, and zere ‘as not been room in my life for ze affections ... but I will be a ver’ good friend to you — and you shall only be in ze shop — with ze books — I will be a good friend—”
Then it seemed that Mr. Zanti kissed Peter on both cheeks, blew out the candle, and climbed into his huge bed; soon he was snoring.
But Peter could not be sure of these things because he was so very tired that he did not know whether he were standing on his head or his heels and he was asleep on his sofa and dreaming about the strangest and most confused events in less than no time at all.
III
And then how wonderful to discover, on waking up the next morning, that it was a beautiful day, as beautiful a day as any that Cornwall could give him. It was indeed odd, after the great darkness of the afternoon before to find now a burning blue sky, bright shining pavements and the pieces of iron and metal on the cabs glittering as they rolled along. The streets were doubtless delightful but Peter was not, on this day at any rate, to see very much of them; he was handed over to the care of Herr Gottfried Hanz, who had obviously not brushed his hair when he got up in the morning; he also wore large blue slippers that were too big for his feet and clattered behind him as he walked. Whatever light there might be in the street outside only chinks of it found their way into the shop and the gas-jet hissed and flared as it had done on the day before. The books seemed mistier and dustier than ever and Peter wondered, in a kind of despair, how in the world if any one did come in and ask for anything he was going to tell them whether it were there or not.
But here Herr Gottfried came to the rescue. “See you,” he said with an air of pride, “it is thus that they are arranged. Here you have the Novel — Brontë, Bulwer, Bunyan (“The Pilgrim’s Progress,” that is not a novel but it is near enough). Here you have History, and here the Poets, and here Philosophy and here Travel — it will all be simple in time—”
Peter’s eyes spun dizzily to the heights.
“There is a little ladder,” said Herr Gottfried.
“And,” at last said Peter timidly, “May I — read — when there is no one here?”
Herr Gottfried looked at him with a new interest. “You like reading?”
“Like!” Peter’s voice was an ecstasy.
“Why of course, often.” Herr Gottfried smiled. “And then see! (he opened the shop door) there is a small boy, James, who is supposed to look after these (these were the 1d., 2d. and 3d. boxes outside the window, on the pavement) but he is an idle boy and often enough he is not there and then we must have the door open and you must watch them. Often enough (this seemed a favourite phrase of his) these gentlemen (this with great scorn) will turn the books over and over and they will look up the street once and they will look down the street once, and then into the pocket a book will go — often enough,” he added, looking beyond the door savagely at a very tired and tattered lady who was turning the 1d. lot over and over.
Then, this introductory lesson concluded, Herr Gottfried suddenly withdrew into the tangles of his hair and retreated behind his counter. Through the open door there came the most entrancing sound and the bustle of the street was loud and startling — bells ringing, boys shouting, wheels rattling, and beyond these immediate notes a steady hum like the murmur of an orchestra heard through closed doors. All this was wonderful enough but it was nothing at all to the superlative fascination of that multitude of books. Peter found a hard little chair in a dark corner and sat down upon it. Here he was in the very heart of his kingdom! He could never read all the books in this place if he lived for two hundred years... and so he had better not try. He made a blind dash at the volumes nearest him (quietly lest he should disturb Herr Gottfried who seemed very busy at his counter) and secured something and read it as well as he could, for the light was very bad. It was called “The True and Faithful Experiences of the Reverend James Scott in the Other World Being a Veracious History of his Experiences of the Life after Death” — the dust rose from its pages in little clouds and tempted him to sneeze but he bit his lip and counted forty and saved the situation.
Herr Gottfried dealt with the customers that morning and Peter stood nervously watching him. The customers were not very many — an old lady who “wanted something to read” caused many volumes to be laid before her, and finally left the shop without buying anything — a young man with spectacles purchased some tattered science and a clergyman some Sermons. A thin and very hungry looking man entered, clutching a badly-tied paper parcel. These were books he wanted to sell. They were obviously treasured possessions because he touched them, when they were laid upon the counter, with a loving hand.
“They are very good books,” he said plaintively.
“Three shillings,” said Herr Gottfried.
The hungry man sighed.
“Five shillings,” he said, “they are worth more.”
“Three shillings for the lot,” said Herr Gottfried.
“It is very little,” said the hungry man, but he took the money and went out sadly.
Once their came a magnificent gentleman — that is, he looked magnificent in the distance away from the gas jet. He was tall with a high hat, a fine moustache and a tailcoat; he had melancholy eyes and a languid air. Peter was sorry to observe on a closer view that his tail-coat was frayed and his collar not very clean.
He gave Herr Gottfried a languid bow and passed through the shop into the room beyond.
“Guten Tag, Herr Signer,” said Herr Gottfried with deference, but the gentleman had already disappeared.
Then, after a time, one o’clock struck and Peter understood that if he would place himself under Herr Gottfried’s protection he should be led to an establishment where for a small sum meat-pies were to be had... all this very novel and delightful, and Peter laid down “The Experiences of the Reverend James Scott,” which were not at present very thrilling and followed his guide into the street. Peter was still wondering where Herr Gottfried had put his blue slippers and whence had come the large flat boots and the brown and faded squash hat when he was suddenly in a little dark street with the houses hanging forward as though they were listening and any number of clothes dangling from the window sills and waving about as though their owners were still inside them and kicking vigorously. Although the street was dark it was full of noise, and a blaze of light at the other end of it proclaimed more civilised quarters (Trafalgar Square in fact) at no great distance.
“Gerade aus,” said Herr Gottfried and pushed open a swinging door. Peter followed him into the most amazing babel of voices, a confusion and a roaring, an atmosphere thick with smoke and steam and a scent in the air as though ten thousand meat-pies were cooking there before his eyes. By the door a neat stout little woman, hung all over with lockets and medallions as though she were wearing all the prizes that the famous meat-pies had ever won, was sitting in a little box with a glass front to it.
“Bon jour, Monsieur Hanz.”
“Tag, Meine Gnädige Frau.”
All down the room, by the wall, ran long tables black with age and grime. Men of every age and nationality were eating, drinking, smoking and talking.
Some of them knew Herr Gottfried, some did not.
“Wie gehts, Gottfried?”
And Herr Gottfried, planting his flat feet like dead weights in front of him, taking off his hat and running his fingers through his hair, smiled at some, spoke to others, and at last found a little corner at the end of the room, a corner comparatively quiet but most astoundingly smelly.
Peter sat down and recovered his breath. How far away now was Treliss with its cobbled street, and the Grey Hill with the Giant’s Finger pointing solemnly to the sky.
“I have no money,” he said.
“The Master has given me this for you,” Herr Gottfried said, handing him two sovereigns, “he says it is in advance for the week.”
The meat-pies, beer and bread were ordered and then for a time they sat in silence. Peter was turning in his mind a thousand questions that he would like to ask but he was still afraid of his strange companion and he felt a little as though he were some human volcano that might at any moment burst forth and cover him with furious disaster.
Then Herr Gottfried said:
“And so you care for reading?”
“Yes.”
“What do you read?”
What had Peter read? He mentioned timidly “David Copperfield,” “Don Quixote,” and “Henry Lessingham.”
“Ah, that’s the way — novels, novels, novels — always sugar ... Greek, Latin?”
“No, just a little at school.”
“Ah, yes, your schools. I know them. Homer?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Ah, well you shall read Homer. He is the greatest, he is the Master. There is Pope for a beginning. I will teach you Greek.... Goethe?”
“I — beg your pardon.”
“Goethe, Goethe, Goethe — he has never heard of him — never. Ah, these schools — I know them. Teach them nonsense — often enough — but any wisdom — never—”
“I’m very sorry—” said Peter humbly.
“And music?”