by Hugh Walpole
“Excuse — not intruding, I hope?” He looked gloomily round the room. “Everything all right?”
“Very nice,” said Peter.
“Ah, you’ll like it at first — but never mind. Wonderful woman, Mrs. Brockett. I expect you were alarmed just now.”
“I was, a little,” admitted Peter.
“Ah, well, we all are at first. But you’ll get over that, you’ll love her — every one loves her. By the way,” he pushed his hand through his hair, “what I came about was to tell you that we all foregather — as you might say — in the sitting-room before dinner — yes — and I’d like to introduce you to my wife, the Signora — not Italian, you know — but you’ll like her better than me — every one’s agreed that hers is a nicer character.”
Peter, trembling a little at the thought of more strangers, followed the Signer downstairs and found, in the middle of one of the dark landings, looking as though she had been left there by some one and completely forgotten, a little wisp of a woman with bright yellow hair and a straw coloured dress, and this was the Signora. This lady shook hands with him in a frightened tearful way and made choking noises all the way downstairs, and this distressed Peter very much until he discovered that she had a passion for cough drops, which she kept in her pocket in a little tin box and sucked perpetually. The Signor drove his wife and Peter before him into the sitting-room. This was a very brightly-coloured room with any number of brilliant purple vases on the mantelpiece, a pink wall-paper, a great number of shining pictures in the most splendid gilt frames, and in the middle of the room a bright green settee with red cushions on it. On this settee, which was round, with a space in the middle of it, like a circus, several persons were seated, but there was apparently no conversation. They all looked up at the opening of the door, and Peter was so dazzled by the bright colour of the room that it was some time before he could collect his thoughts.
But the Signor beckoned to him, and he followed.
“Allow me, Mrs. Monogue,” said the Signor, “to introduce to you Mr. Peter Westcott.” The lady in question was stout, red-faced, and muffled in shawls. She extended him a haughty finger.
There followed then Miss Norah Monogue, a girl with a pleasant smile and untidy hair, Miss Dall, a lady with a very stiff back, a face like an interrogation mark, because her eyebrows went up in a point and a very tight black dress, Mr. Herbert Crumley, and Mr. Peter Crumley, two short, thin gentlemen with wizened and anxious faces (they were obviously brothers, because they were exactly alike), and Mrs. and Mr. Tressiter, two pleasant-faced, cheerful people, who sat very close together as though they were cold.
All these people shook hands agreeably with Peter, but made no remarks, and he stood awkwardly looking at the purple vases and wishing that something would happen.
Something did happen. The door was very softly and slowly opened, and a little woman came hurrying in. She had white hair, and glasses were dangling on the end of her nose, and she wore a very old and shabby black silk dress. She looked round with an agitated air.
“I don’t know why it is,” she said, with a little chirrup, like a bird’s, “but I’m always late — always!”
Then she did an amazing thing. She walked to the green settee and sat down between Miss Dall, the lady with the tight dress, and Mrs. Monogue. She then took out of one pocket an orange and out of another a piece of newspaper.
“I must have my orange, you know,” she said, looking gaily round on every one.
She spread the newspaper on her knee, and then peeled the orange very slowly and with great care. The silence was maintained — no one spoke. Then suddenly the Signor darted forward: “Oh, Mrs. Lazarus I must introduce you to Madame’s new guest, Mr. Westcott.”
“How do you do?” the old lady chirruped. “Oh! but my fingers are all over orange — never mind, we’ll smile at one another. I hope you’ll like the place, I’m sure. I always have an orange before dinner. They’ve got used to me, you know. We’ve all got our little habits.”
Peter did not know what to say, and was wondering whether he ought to relieve the old lady of her orange peel (at which she was gazing rather helplessly), when a bell rang and Florence appeared at the door.
“Dinner!” she said, laconically.
A procession was formed, Mrs. Monogue, with her shawls sweeping behind her, sailed in front, and Peter brought up the rear. Mrs. Lazarus put the orange peel into the newspaper and placed it all carefully in her pocket.
Mrs. Brockett was sitting, more like a soldier than ever, at the head of the table. Mutton was in front of her, and there seemed to be nothing on the table cloth but cruets and three dusty and melancholic palms. Peter found that he was sitting between Mrs. Lazarus and Miss Dall, and that he was not expected to talk. It was apparent indeed that the regularity with which every one met every one at this hour of the day, during months and months of the year negatived any polite necessity of cordiality or genial spirits. When any one spoke it was crossly and in considerable irritation, and although the food was consumed with great eagerness on everybody’s part, the faces of the company were obviously anxious to express the fact that the food was worse than ever, and they wouldn’t stand it another minute. They all did stand it, however, and Peter thought that they were all, secretly, rather happy and contented. During most of the meal no one spoke to him, and as he was very hungry this did not matter. Opposite him, all down the side of the room, were dusty grey pillars, and between these pillars heavy dark green curtains were hanging. This had the effect of muffling and crushing the conversation and quite forbidding anybody to be cheerful in any circumstances. Mrs. Lazarus indeed chirruped along comfortably and happily for the most part to herself — as, for instance, “I am orangy, but then I was late and couldn’t finish it. Dear me, it’s mutton again. I really must tell Madame about it and there’s nothing so nice as beef and Yorkshire pudding, is there? Dear me, would you mind, young man, just asking Dear Miss Dall to pass the salt spoon. She’s left that behind. I have the salt-cellar, thank you.”
She also hummed to herself at times and made her bread into little hard pellets, which she flicked across the table with her thumb at no one in particular and in sheer absence of mind. The two Mr. Crumleys were sitting opposite to her, and they accepted the little charge of shot with all the placid equanimity bred of ancient custom.
Peter noticed other things. He noticed that Mrs. Monogue was an exceedingly ill-tempered and selfish woman, and that she bullied the pleasant girl with the untidy hair throughout the meal, and that the girl took it all in the easiest possible way. He noticed that Mrs. Brockett dealt with each of her company in turn — one remark apiece, and always in that stern, deep voice with the strangely beautiful musical note in it. To himself she said: “Well, Mr. Westcott, I’m pleased, I’m sure, that everything is to your satisfaction,” and listened gravely to his assurance. To Miss Dall: “Well, Miss Ball, I looked at the book you lent me and couldn’t find any sense in it, I’m afraid.” To Mrs. Tressiter: “I had little Minnie with me for half an hour this evening, and I’m sure a better behaved child never breathed” ... and so on.
Once Miss Dall turned upon him sharply with: “I suppose you never go and hear the Rev. Mr. M. J. Valdwell?” and Peter had to confess ignorance.
“Really! Well, it ‘ud do you young men a world of good.”
He assured her that he would go.
“I will lend you a volume of his sermons if you would care to read them.”
Peter said that he would be delighted. The meal was soon over, and every one returned to the sitting-room. They sat about in a desolate way, and Peter discovered afterwards that Mrs. Brockett liked every one to be there together for half an hour to encourage friendly relations. That object could scarcely be said to be achieved, because there was very little conversation and many anxious glances were flung at the clocks. Mrs. Brockett, however, sat sternly in a chair and sewed, and no one ventured to leave the room.
One pleasant thing happened. Pet
er was standing by the window turning over some fashion papers of an ancient date, when he saw that Miss Monogue was at his elbow. Now that she was close to him he observed that she looked thin and delicate; her dress was worn and old-fashioned, she looked as though she ought to be wrapped up warmly and taken care of — but her eyes were large and soft and grey, and although her wrists looked strangely white and sharp through her black dress her hands were beautiful. Her voice was soft with an Irish brogue lingering pleasantly amongst her words:
“I hope that you will like being here.”
“I’m sure I shall,” he said, smiling. He felt grateful to her for talking to him.
“You’re very fortunate to have come to Mrs. Brockett’s straight away. You mayn’t think so now, because Mrs. Brockett is alarming at first, and we none of us—” she looked round her with a little laugh— “can strike the on-looker as very cheerful company. But really Madame has a heart of gold — you’ll find that out in time. She’s had a terribly hard time of it herself, and I believe it’s a great struggle to keep things going now. But she’s helped all kinds of people in her time.”
Peter looked, with new eyes, at the lady so sternly sewing.
“You don’t know,” Miss Monogue went on in her soft, pleasant voice, “how horrible these boarding-houses can be. Mother and I have tried a good many. But here people stay for ever — a pretty good testimony to it, I think ... and then, you know, she never lets any one stay here if she doesn’t like them — so that prevents scoundrels. There’ve been one or two, but she’s always found them out ... and I believe she keeps old Mrs. Lazarus quite free of charge.”
She paused, and then she added:
“And there’s no one here who hasn’t found life pretty hard. That gives us a kind of freemasonry, you know. The Tressiters, for instance, they have three children, and he has been out of work for months — sometimes there’s such a frightened look in her eyes ... but you mustn’t think that we’re melancholy here,” she went on more happily. “We get a lot of happiness out of it all.”
He looked at her, and remembering Mrs. Monogue at dinner and seeing now how delicate the girl looked, thought that she must have a very considerable amount of pluck on her own account.
“And you?” she said. “Have you only just come up to London?”
“Yes,” he answered, “I’m in a bookseller’s shop — a second-hand bookseller’s. I’ve only been in London a few days — it’s all very exciting for me — and a little confusing at present.”
“I’m sure you’ll get on,” she said. “You look so strong and confident and happy. I envy you your strength — one can do so much if one’s got that.”
He felt almost ashamed of his rough suit, his ragged build. “Well, I’ve always been in the country,” he said, a little apologetically. “I expect London will change that.”
Then there came across the room Mrs. Monogue’s sharp voice. “Norah! Norah! I want you.”
She left him.
That night in his little room, he looked from his window at the sea of black roofs that stretched into the sky and found in their ultimate distance the wonderful sweep of stars that domed them; a great moon, full-rounded, dull gold, staring like a huge eye, above them. His heart was full. A God there must be somewhere to have given him all this splendour — a splendour surely for him to work upon. He felt as a craftsman feels, when some new and wonderful tools have been given to him; as a woman feels the child in her womb, stirring mysteriously, moving her to deep and glad thankfulness, so now, with the night wind blowing about him, and all London lying, dark and motionless, below him, he felt the first stirring of his power. This was his to work with, this was his to praise and glorify and make beautiful — now crude and formless — a seed dark and without form or colour — one day to make one more flower in that garden that God has given his servants to work in.
He did not, at this instant, doubt that some God was there, crying to him, and that he must answer. Of that moon, of those stars, of that mighty city, he would make one little stone that might be added to that Eternal Temple of Beauty....
He turned from his window and thought of other things. He thought of his father and Scaw House, of the windy day when his mother was buried, of Mr. Zanti and Stephen’s letter, of Herr Gottfried and his blue slippers, of this house and its people, of the friendly girl and her grey eyes ... finally, for a little, of himself — of his temper and his ambitions and his selfishness. Here, indeed, suddenly jumping out at him, was the truth.
He felt, as he got into bed, that he would have to change a great deal if he were to write that great book that he thought of: “Little Peter Westcott,” London seemed to say, “there’s lots to be done to you first before you’re worth anything ... I’ll batter at you.”
Well, let it, he thought, sleepily. There was nothing that he would like better. He tumbled into sleep, with London after him, and Fame in front of him, and a soft and resonant murmur, as of a slumbering giant, rising to his open window.
BOOK II — THE BOOKSHOP
CHAPTER I
“REUBEN HALLARD”
I
There is a story in an early volume of Henry Galleon’s about a man who caught — as he may have caught other sicknesses in his time — the disease of the Terror of London. Eating his breakfast cheerfully in his luxurious chambers in Mayfair, in the act of pouring his coffee out of his handsome silver coffee-pot, he paused. It was the very slightest thing that held his attention — the noise of the rumbling of the traffic down Piccadilly — but he was startled and, on that morning, he left his breakfast unfinished. He had, of course, heard that rumbling traffic on many other occasions — it may be said to have been the musical accompaniment to his breakfast for many years past. But on this morning it was different; as one has a headache before scarlet fever so did this young man hear the rumble of the traffic down Piccadilly. He listened to it very attentively, and it was, he told himself, very like the noise of some huge animal breathing in its sleep. There was a regularity, a monotony about it ... and also perhaps a sense of great force, quiescent now and held in restraint. He was a very normal, well-balanced young man and thoughts of this kind were unlike him.
Then he heard other things — the trees rustling in the park, bells ringing on every side of him, builders knocking and hammering, windows rattling, doors opening and shutting. In the Club one evening he confided in a friend. “I say, it’s damned funny — but what would you say to this old place being alive, taking on a regular existence of its own, don’t you know? You might draw it — a great beast like some old alligator, all curled up, with its teeth and things — making a noise a bit as it moves about ... and then, one day when it’s got us nicely all on top of it, down it will bring us all, houses and the rest. Damned funny idea, what? Do for a cartoon-fellow or some one—”
The disease developed; he had it very badly, but at first his friends did not know. He lay awake at night hearing things — one heard much more at night — sometimes he fancied that the ground shook under his feet — but most terrible of all was it when there was perfect silence. The traffic ceased, the trees and windows and doors were still ... the Creature was listening. Sometimes he read in papers that buildings had suddenly collapsed. He smiled to himself. “When we are all nicely gathered together,” he said, “when there are enough people ... then—”
His friends said that he had a nervous breakdown; they sent him to a rest-cure. He came back. The Creature was fascinating — he was terrified, but he could not leave it.
He knew more and more about it; he knew now what it was like, and he saw its eyes and he sometimes could picture its grey scaly back with churches and theatres and government buildings and the little houses of Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones perched upon it — and the noises that it made now were so many and so threatening that he never slept at all. Then he began to run, shouting, down Piccadilly, so they put him — very reluctantly — into a nice Private Asylum, and there he died, screaming. This story is a prolo
gue to Peter’s life in London.... The story struck his fancy; he thought of it sometimes.
II
On a late stormy afternoon in November, 1895, Peter finished his book, “Reuben Hallard.” It had been raining all day, and now the windows were blurred and the sea of shining roofs that stretched into the mist emphasised the dark and gloom of the heavy overhanging sky.
Peter’s little room was very cold, but his body was burning — he was in a state of overpowering excitement; his hands trembled so that he could scarcely hold his pen ... “So died Reuben Hallard, a fool and a gentleman” — and then “Finis” with a hard straight line underneath it.... He had been working at it for three years, and he had been in London seven.
He walked up and down his little room, he was so hot that he flung up his window and leaned out and let the rain, that was coming down fiercely now, lash his face. Mud! London was full of mud. He could see it, he fancied, gathering in thick brown layers upon the pavement, shining and glistening as it mounted, slipping in streams into the gutter, sweeping about the foundations of the houses, climbing perhaps, one day, to the very windows. That was London. And yet he loved it, London and its dirt and darkness. Had he not written “Reuben Hallard” here! Had the place not taken him into its arms, given him books and leisure out of its hospitality, treated him kindly during these years so that they had fled like an instant of time, and here he was, Peter Westcott, aged twenty-five, with a book written, four friends made, and the best health possible to man. The book was “Reuben Hallard,” the friends were Mrs. Brockett, Mr. Zanti, Herr Gottfried, and Norah Monogue, and for his health one had only to look at him!