by Hugh Walpole
“Now what about terms for me and my friend?” said Stephen.
Now followed friendly argument in which the lady and Stephen seemed perfectly to understand one another. After asserting that under no circumstances whatever could she possibly take less than at least double the price that Stephen offered her she suddenly, at the sound of a child’s shrill crying from below, shrugged her shoulders with: “There’s young ‘Lisbeth Anne again ... well, Mr. Brant, ‘ave it your own way — I’m contented enough I’m sure,” and vanished.
But the little discussion had brought Peter to a sharp realisation of the immediate business of ways and means. Sitting on one of the beds afterwards with Stephen beside him he inquired —
“How much have we got, Stephen? I’ve got thirty bob.”
“Never you mind, Peter. We’ll soon be gettin’ work.”
“Why, of course. I’ll force ’em to take me. That’s all you want in these things — to look fierce and say you won’t go until they give you something — a trial anyhow.”
And sitting there on the bed with Stephen beside him he felt immensely confident. There was nothing that he could not do. With one swift movement he seemed to have flung from him all the things that were beginning to crowd in between him and his work. He must never, never allow that to happen again — how could one ever be expected to work if one were always thinking of other people, interested in them and their doings, involved with anarchists and bombs and romantic adventures. Why here he was with nothing in the world to hold him or to interfere and no one except dear old Stephen with whom he must talk. Ambition crept very close to him that night — ambition with its glittering, shining rewards, its music and colours — close to him as he sat in that bare, naked room.
“I’d rather be with you than any one in the world — we’ll have such times, you and I.”
Perhaps Stephen knew more about the world; perhaps during the years that he had been tumbled and knocked about he had realised that the world was no easy nut to crack and that loaves and fishes don’t come to the hungry for the asking. But Peter that night was to be appalled by nothing.
They sat up into the early morning, talking. The noises in the house and in the streets about them rose and fell. Some distant cry would climb into the silence and draw from it other cries set like notes of music to tumble back into a common scheme together.
“Steve, tell me about Zanti. Is he really a scoundrel?”
“A scoundrel? No, poor feller. Why, Mr. Peter, you ought to know better than that. ’E ain’t got a spark of malice in him but ‘e’s always after adventure. ’E knows all the queer people in Europe — and more’n Europe too. There’s nothin’ ’e don’t put ’is nose into in a clumsy, childish way but always, you understand, Mr. Peter, because ‘e’s after ’is romantic fancies. It was when ’e was after gold down in Cornwall — some old treasure story — that I came across ’im and ’e was kind to me.... ’E was a kind-’earted man, Mr. Zanti, and never meant ‘arm to a soul. And ‘e’s very fond of you, Mr. Peter.”
“Yes, I know.” Peter was vaguely troubled. “I hope I haven’t been unkind about him. I suppose it was the shock of the whole thing. But it was time I went anyway. But tell me, Stephen, what you’ve been doing all these years. And why you let me be all that time without seeing you—”
“Well, Mr. Peter, I didn’t think it would be good for you — I was knowing lots o’ strange people time and again and then you might have been mixed up with me. I’m safe enough now, I’m thinking, and I’d have been safe enough all the time the way Cornwall was then and every one sympathising with me—”
“But what have you been doing all the time?”
“I was in America a bit and there are few things I haven’t worked at in my time — always waiting for ‘er to come — and she will come some time — it’s only patience that’s wanted.”
“Have you ever heard from her?”
“There was a line once — just a line — she’s all right.” His great body seemed to glow with confidence.
Peter would like then to have spoken about Clare Rossiter. But no — some shyness held him — one day he would tell Stephen.
He unpacked his few possessions carefully and then, on a very hard bed, dreaming of bombs, of Mrs. Brockett dressed as a ballet dancer, of Mr. Zanti digging for treasure beneath the grey flags of Bennett Square, of Clare Elizabeth Rossiter riding down Oxford Street amidst the shouts of the populace, of the world as a coloured globe on which he, Peter Westcott, the author of that masterpiece, “Reuben Hallard,” had set his foot ... so, triumphant, he slept.
II
On the next morning the Attack on London began. The house in Bucket Lane was dark and grim when he left it — the street was hidden from the light and hung like a strip of black ribbon between the sunshine of the broader highways that lay at each end of it. It was a Jewish quarter-notices in Yiddish were in all the little grimy shop windows, in the bakers and the sweetshops and the laundries. But it was not, this Bucket Lane, a street without its dignity and its own personal little cleanliness. It had its attempts at such things. His own room and Mrs. Williams’ tea and bread and butter had been clean.
But as he came down out of these strange murmuring places with their sense of hiding from the world at large the things that they were occupied in doing, Bucket Lane stuck in his head as a dark little quarry into which he must at the day’s end, whatever gorgeous places he had meanwhile encountered, creep. “Creeping” was the only way to get into such a place.
Meanwhile he had put on his best, had blackened his shoes until they shone like little mirrors, had brushed his bowler hat again and again and looked finally like a sailor on shore for a holiday. Seven years in Charing Cross Road had not taken the brown from his cheeks, nor bent his broad shoulders.
At the Mansion House he climbed on to the top of a lumbering omnibus and sailed down through the City. It was now that he discovered how seldom during his seven years he had ventured beyond his little square of country. Below him, on either side of him, black swarms stirred and moved, now forming ahead of him patterns, squares, circles, then suddenly rising it appeared like insects and in a cloud surging against the high stone buildings. All men — men moving with eyes straight ahead of them, bent furiously upon some business, but assembling, retreating, advancing, it seemed, by the order of some giant hand that in the air above them played a game. Imagine that, in some moment of boredom, the Hand were to brush the little pieces aside, were to close the board and put it away, then, with what ignominy and feeble helplessness would these little black figures topple clumsily into heaps.
Down through the midst of them the omnibus, like a man with an impediment in his speech, surrounded by the chatter of cabs and carts and bicycles, stammered its way. The streets opened and shut, shouts came up to them and fell away. Peter’s heart danced — London was here at last and the silence of Bennett Square, the dark omens of Bucket Lane and the clamour of the city had together been the key for the unlocking of its gates.
Ludgate Hill caught them into its heart, held them for an instant, and then flung them down in the confusion of Fleet Street.
Here it was at last then with its typewriters and its telephones and its printing machines hurling with a whir and clatter the news of the world into the air, and above it brooding, like an immense brain — the God of its restless activity — the Dome of St. Paul’s.
Peter climbed down from his omnibus because he saw on his right a Public Reading Room. Here in tattered and anxious company, he studied the papers and took down addresses in a note book. He was frightened for an instant by the feet that shuffled up and down the floor from paper to paper. There was something most hopeless in the sound of that shuffle.
“‘Ave yer a cigarette on yer, Mister, that yer wouldn’t mind—”
He turned round and at once, like blows, two fierce gaunt eyes struck him in the face. Two eyes staring from some dirty brown pieces of cloth on end, it seemed, by reason of their own path
etic striving for notice, rather than because of any life inside them.
Peter murmured something and hurried away. Supposing that editors ... but no, this was not the proper beginning of a successful day. But the place, down steps under the earth, with its miserable shadows was not pleasant to remember.
His first visit was to the office of The Morning World. He remembered his remark to Stephen about self-assertion, but his heart sank as he entered the large high room with its railed counter running round the centre of it — a barrier cold, impassable. Already several people were sitting on chairs that were ranged along the wall.
Peter went up boldly to the counter and a very thin young man with a stone hatchet instead of a face and his hair very wonderfully parted in the middle — so accurately parted that Peter could think of nothing else — watched him coldly over the barrier.
“What can I do for you?” he said.
“I want to see the Editor.”
“Have you an appointment?”
“No.”
“Oh, I’m afraid that it would be impossible without an appointment.”
“Is there any one whom I could see?”
“If you could tell me your business, perhaps—”
Peter began to be infuriated with this young man with the hatchet face.
“I want to know if there’s any place for me on this paper. If I can—”
“Oh!” The voice was very cold indeed and the iron barrier seemed to multiply itself over and over again all round the room.
“I’m afraid in that case you had better write to the Editor and make an appointment. No, I’m afraid there is no one...”
Peter melted away. The faces on the chairs were all very glad. The stone building echoed with some voice that called some one a long way away. Peter was in the street. He stood outside the great offices of The Morning World and looked across the valley at the great dome that squatted above the moving threads of living figures. He was absurdly upset by this unfortunate interview. What could he have expected? Of what use was it that he should fling his insignificance against that kind of wall? Moreover he must try many times before his chance would be given him. It was absurd that he should mind that rebuff. But the hatchet-faced young man pursued him. He seemed to see now as he looked up and down the street, a hostility in the faces of those that passed him. Moreover he saw, here and there figures, wretched figures, moving in and out of the crowd, bending into the gutter for something that had been dropped — lean, haggard faces, burning eyes ... he began to see them as a chain that wound, up and down, amongst the people and the carriages along the street.
He pulled himself together — If he was feeling these things at the very beginning of his battle why then defeat was certain. He was ashamed and, looking at his paper, chose the offices of The Mascot, a very popular society journal that brightened the world with its cheerful good-tempered smile, every Friday morning. Here the room in which he found himself was small and cosy, it had a bright pink wall-paper, and behind a little shining table a shining young woman beamed upon him. The shining young woman was, however, very busy at her typewriter and Peter was examined by a tiny office boy who seemed to be made entirely of shining brass buttons and shining little boots and shining hair.
“And what can I do for you, sir?” he said.
“I should like to see the Editor,” Peter explained.
“Your name?” said the Shining One.
Peter had no cards. He blamed himself for the omission and stammered in his reply.
The Boy gave the lady at the typewriter a very knowing look and disappeared. He swiftly returned and said that Mr. Boset could see Mr. Westcott for a few minutes, but for a few minutes only.
Mr. Boset sat resplendent in a room that was coloured a bright green. He was himself stout and red-faced and of a surpassing smartness, his light blue suit was very tight at the waist and very broad over the hips, his white spats gleamed, his pearl pin stared like an eye across the room, his neck bulged in red folds over his collar. Mr. Boset was eating chocolates out of a little cardboard box and his attention was continually held by the telephone that summoned him to its side at frequent intervals. He was however exceedingly pleasant. He begged Peter to take a chair.
“Just a minute, Mr. Westcott, will you? Yes — hullo — yes — This is 6140 Strand. Hullo! Hullo! Oh — is that you, Mrs. Wyman? Good morning — yes, splendid, thank you — never fitter — Very busy yes, of course — what — Lunch Thursday?... Oh, but delighted. Just let me look at my book a moment? Yes — quite free — Who? The Frasers and Pigots? Oh! delightful! 1.30, delightful!”
Mr. Boset, settled once more in his chair, was as charming as possible. You would suppose that the whole day was at Peter’s service. He wanted to know a great many things. Peter’s hopes ran high.
“Well — what have you got to show? What have you written?”
Peter had written a novel.
“Published?”
“No.”
“Well ... got anything else?”
“No — not just at present.”
“Oh well — must have something to show you know—”
“Yes.” Peter’s hopes were in his boots.
“Yes — must have something to show—” Mr. Boset’s eyes were peering into the cardboard box on a voyage of selection.
“Yes — well — when you’ve written something send it along—”
“I suppose there isn’t anything I can do—”
“Well, our staff, you know, is filled up to the eyes as it is — fellows waiting — lots of ’em — yes, you show us what you can do. Write an article or two. Buy The Mascot and see the kind of thing we like. Yes — Excuse me, the telephone — Yes — Yes 6140 Strand....”
Peter found himself once more in the outer room and then ushered forth by the Shining Boy he was in the street.
He was hungry now and sought an A.B.C. shop and there over the cold marble-topped tables consulted his list. The next attempt should be The Saturday Illustrated, one of the leading illustrated weeklies, and perhaps there he would be more successful. As he sat in the A.B.C. shop and watched the squares of street opposite the window he felt suddenly that no effort of his would enable him to struggle successfully against those indifferent crowds.
Above the houses in the patch of blue sky that filled the window-pane soft bundles of cloud streamed like flags before the wind. Into these soft grey meshes the sun was swept and with a cold shudder Fleet Street fell into shadow; beyond it and above it the great dome burned; a company of sandwich men, advertising on their stooping bodies the latest musical comedy, crept along the gutter.
III
At the offices of The Saturday Illustrated they told him that if he returned at four o’clock he would be able to see the Editor. He walked about and at last sat down on the Embankment and watched the barges slide down the river. The water was feathery and sometimes streamed into lines like spun silk reflecting many colours, and above the water the clouds turned and wheeled and changed against the limpid blue. The little slap that the motion of the river gave to the stone embankment reminded him of the wooden jetty at Treliss — the place was strangely sweet — the roar of the Strand was far away and muffled.
As he sat there listening there seemed to come up to him, straight out of the river, strange impersonal noises that had to do with no definite sounds. He was reminded of a story that he had once read, a story concerning a nice young man who caught the disease known as the Horror of London. Peter thought that in the air, coming from nowhere, intangible, floating between the river and the sky something stirred....
Big Ben struck quarter to four and he turned once more into the Strand.
The editor of The Saturday Illustrated was a very different person from Mr. Boset. At a desk piled with papers, stern, gaunt and sharp-chinned, his words rattled out of his mouth like peas onto a plate. But Peter saw that he had humorous twinkling eyes.
“Well, what can you do?”
“I’ve never
tried anything — but I feel that I should learn—”
“Learn! Do you suppose this office is a nursery shop for teaching sucklings how to draw their milk? Are you ready for anything?”
“Anything—”
“Yes — they all say that. Journalism isn’t any fun, you know.”
“I’m not looking for fun.”
“Well, it’s the damnedest trade out. Anything’s better. But you want to write?”
“I must.”
“Yes — exactly. Well, I like the look of you. More blood and bones than most of the rotten puppies that come into this office. I’ve no job for you at the moment though. Go back to your digs and write something — anything you like — and send it along — leave me your address. Oh, ho! Bucket Lane — hard up?”
“I’m all right, thank you.”
“All right, I wasn’t offering you charity — no need to put your pride up. I shan’t forget you ... but send me something.”
The clouds had now enveloped the sun. As Peter, a little encouraged by this last experience but tired with a dull, listless fatigue, crept into the dark channels of Bucket Lane, the rain began to fall with heavy solemn drops.
CHAPTER VII
DEVIL’S MARCH
I
There could be nothing odder than the picture that Brockett’s and Bennett Square presented from the vantage ground of Bucket Lane. How peaceful and happy those evenings (once considered a little dreary perhaps and monotonous) now seemed! Those mornings in the dusty bookshop, Mr. Zanti, Herr Gottfried, Mrs. Brockett, then Brockett’s with its strange kind-hearted company — the dining-room, the marble pillars, the green curtains — Norah Monogue!
Not only did it seem another lifetime when he had been there but also inevitably, one was threatened with never getting back. Bucket Lane was another world — from its grimy windows one looked upon every tragedy that life had to offer. Into its back courts were born muddled indecent little lives, there blindly to wallow until the earth called them back to itself again.