Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  Nan May grasped the situation, and conceived an instant notion, for indeed she had inborn talent as a shopkeeper, though till now it had had no chance to show itself. “Will you wait five minutes?” she asked.

  Yes, he would wait five minutes, but no more: and he sat on the empty case, from which Uncle Isaac had delivered his recommendation of Enterprise. Nan May cut two rashers and retired to the shop parlour. In three minutes the hungry customer was hammering on the counter, declaring that he could wait no longer. Pacified by assurances from within, he resigned himself to a minute and a half more of patience: when Mrs. May returned with a massive sandwich, wherein the two rashers, fresh frizzled, lay between two thick slices of bread. Lifting the top slice for a moment, as guarantee of good faith, Nan May exchanged the whole ration for threepence.

  “If you’d like any cold boiled bacon, sir,” she said, “I shall have some at one o’clock.”

  He heard, but he was off at a trot with his sandwich. In five minutes Nan May’s bonnet was on, and in five more Bessy was minding shop alone, while her mother hastened to Mr. Dunkin’s for a hock of bacon. Here was a possible change of fortune, and Nan May was not a woman to waste a chance.

  Boiled and cooled — or cooled enough for the taste of hungry riveters — the hock stood in a dish on the counter at one o’clock, flanked by carving-knife and fork. A card, bearing the best 10 that Bessy could draw, advertised the price, and the first quarter-pound of slices was duly cut for the desolate husband, who came back, a little later, for two ounces more; for he had been ill-fed for two or three days, and the new baby made an event wherewith some extra expense was natural. Boys came for two other quarter-pounds, so that it was plain that the first customer had told others; and a loaf was cut up to go with the bacon.

  Mrs. May announced the new branch of trade to Johnny when he came to dinner; and though as yet the returns were small enough, there was a new chance, and his mother was hopeful of it; so he went back to the lathe with a lighter heart.

  That night the riveters worked overtime, and the bacon was in better demand still. More, at night two or three men took home a snack in paper, for supper; and from that day things grew better daily. The hock was finished by the afternoon of the next day, and the establishment was out of pickles; for men and boys who brought their own cold meat with them came now for pickles. Trade was better as the days went on, and Christmas, though it found them poor enough, was none so sad a festival after all. And in a month, when the gate had been formally opened for some time, and the men streamed by in hundreds, three large hocks would rarely last two days; and there was an average profit of three shillings a hock. More, the bread came in daily in batches, at trade price, and cheese and pickles went merrily. But what went best, and what increased in sale even beyond this point, was the bacon. Some customers called it ham, which pleased Nan May; for indeed her cooking hit the popular taste, and she began to feel a pride in it. Men who went home to dinner would buy bacon to take home for tea; and as many of these lived in Harbour Lane and thereabout, custom soon came from their wives, in soap and candles, treacle and pepper and blacking. Nan May’s trade instinct grew with exercise. She found the particular sort of bacon that best suited her purpose and her customers’ tastes; she had regular boilings throughout the week; she quickly found the trick of judging the quality of whatever she bought; and she bought to the best use of her money.

  But here it must be said that Nan May, in her new prosperity, behaved toward one benefactor with an undutiful forgetfulness that was near ingratitude. For she bought almost nothing of Mr. Dunkin. He was reasonably grieved. True, she had begun by getting her first stock of him, but even then her critical examination of what was sent showed an unworthily suspicious attitude of mind. She even sent back many things and demanded better, wilfully blind to the fact that Mr. Dunkin could turn her out of the shop at a week’s notice if he pleased; though indeed in his own mind he was not vindictive, for another new tenant would be hard to find. He even submitted to outrage ending in actual loss and humiliation. For a large tin of mustard was Mrs. May’s first supply, and it was a tin from among those kept for sale to small shopkeepers, and not on any account to be sold from retail, across Mr. Dunkin’s own counter. But something in the feel and taste of this mustard did not please Nan May (though indeed she was not asked to eat it), and it went back. Now it chanced that Mr. Dunkin had taken on a new shopman that week, and this bungling incapable straightway began selling mustard from the returned tin. He had served three customers before his blunder was perceived, and then the matter came to light purely because the third customer chanced to be a food and drug inspector. This functionary gravely announced himself as soon as he had good hold of the parcel, and handsomely offered the return of a third part of the mustard, in a sealed packet. And the upshot was a fine of five pounds and costs for Mr. Dunkin, on the opinionative evidence of an analyst, who talked of starch and turmeric and ginger — all very excellent substances, as anybody knows. Truly it was a vexatious blow for Mr. Dunkin, and an unjust; for certainly the fault was not his, and to sell such an article, retail, was wholly against his principles. But he never complained, such was his forbearance: never spoke of his hardship to a soul, in fact, except when he “sacked” the new assistant. It was even said that he had offered a reporter money to keep it out of the papers; and though it did get into the papers (and at good length too) yet the effort was kindly meant. For truly it could but give Mrs. May pain to learn that she had been the cause of Mr. Dunkin’s misfortune, if she were a woman of any feeling at all.

  But as time went, he began to doubt if she were, for her custom dropped away to nothing. The rate at which bacon was handed in from the cart of a firm somewhere in the Borough, was scandalous to behold. Before his very eyes, too, when he called for the rent. He employed a collector, but presently took to coming for the rent himself, that by his presence and his manner he might shame so thankless a tenant into some sense of decency, some order for bacon or mustard. He coughed gently and stared very hard at the incoming goods, but Nan May was in no wise abashed, and gave the carman his directions with shameless composure. With his sympathetic stop full out, Mr. Dunkin asked how trade was, and Nan May answered in proper shopkeeper terms, that “she mustn’t grumble.” With hums and purrs, he led back through casual questions and answers to the stock he had at first supplied, and asked her how she had done with this, and how that had “gone off.” But her answers were so artlessly direct, so inconsiderately truthful, that good Mr. Dunkin was clean baffled, and reduced at last to a desperate hint that if anything were wanted he could take the order back with him. But he got no order, so he purred and hummed his way into Harbour Lane, and so away; and after a time the collector came in his stead.

  Mr. Dunkin resolved to wait. He had some doubts of the permanence of this new prosperity in the shop. The place had never brought anybody a living yet, and he should not feel convinced till he had seen steady trade there for some time. Nan May’s activities could always be kept from flagging by judicious increases of rent, and if the thing grew well established by her exertions, and was certain to continue a paying concern, why, here would be a new branch of Mr. Dunkin’s business ready made.

  It needed but a week’s notice, given unexpectedly, at a properly chosen time, when no neighbouring shop was to let, and a good stroke of business was happily completed. Mrs. May would vanish, a man would go in to manage at a pound or twenty-five shillings a week and his quarters, there would be no interruption to trade (for the outgoing tenant would naturally keep at work till the last minute, to get what little she could), and Mr. Dunkin would have a new branch, paying very excellently, with no trouble to himself. Mr. Dunkin had established other branches in the same way, and found it a very simple and cheap arrangement. There was no risk of his own capital, no trouble in “working-up” the trade, no cost of goodwill, and rent was coming regularly while the tenant laboured with the zeal of a man who imagines he is working for his own benefit and his c
hildren’s. The important thing was to give nothing but a weekly tenancy; else the tenant might find time to get going somewhere near at hand, and so perhaps deprive Mr. Dunkin of the just reward of his sagacity, foresight, and patience. But there was little difficulty in that matter. Beginners were timid and glad of a weekly tenancy, fearing the responsibility of anything longer, at first; and afterwards — well, things were in a groove, and Mr. Dunkin was so very kind and sympathetic that it wasn’t worth while to bother about a change. And by this method Mr. Dunkin, judiciously selecting his purchases in shop property, had acquired two or three of his half-dozen branches, and flourished exceedingly; which all kindly souls rejoiced to see.

  In the beginning he had no thought of this plan for the Harbour Lane shop, being mainly concerned to get a tenant, no matter in what trade; and indeed in his eye the place was as little suited for chandlery as for anything. Even now he must wait, for he doubted the lasting quality of the new prosperity; better a few years of forbearance than a too hurried seizure of a weakening concern, to find little more than the same tenantless shop on his hands after all. And if it seemed that the trade owed anything to the personal qualities and connexions of Mrs. May, well, it would be a simple thing to keep her on to manage, instead of a man. It would be an act of benevolence, moreover, to an unfortunate widow, and come cheaper. But that was a matter for the future.

  Meanwhile Nan May, active and confident, filled her shop by purchase from whatsoever factor sold best and cheapest, and travellers called for her orders. The hungry husband who first came for cooked bacon she always treated with particular consideration, finding him good cuts. He ceased his regular visits in three weeks or less, and Nan May, taught by experience in her earlier London life, well guessed the cause of his coming. In the spring, three months or so later, great crowds thronged about the ship-yard to see the launch of the battleship that overtime had so long been woked on; and when the launch was over, this man and his wife, the man carrying the baby, came into the shop for something to celebrate the occasion at tea. The parents did not altogether comprehend Nan May’s enthusiasm over the baby, which she took from its father’s arms and danced merrily about the shop, while customers waited. But they set it down to admiration of its personal beauty, though truly it was an ordinary slobbery baby enough. But it went away down the street in great state, triumphantly stabbing at its mouth with the sugarstick gripped by one hand, and at its father’s whiskers with that brandished in the other.

  CHAPTER XV.

  ON a Saturday afternoon about this time, Uncle Isaac, in his best black suit and very tall hat, and with the Turk’s-head walking-stick in his hand, started out to see a foreman. Work was rather slack just now (shipwrights’ work was slack everywhere), and the three holidays a week that once were the glory and boast of a free and independent shipwright, were now apt to be a woeful compulsion. Uncle Isaac had been of late poorer (because idler) than he liked, and in such case it was his way to seek the chance of meeting his foreman out of hours, in order to a display of rhetoric, oblique flattery, and dexterous suggestion, that might influence a distribution of short time that would be more favourable to the orator.

  He had wondered much as to the fortunes of Nan and her children, but as it has been said, his tenderness of heart kept him as far as possible from what he believed must now be a scene of sheer failure and destitution: if, indeed, the shop were not abandoned; and he was by no means anxious that his poor relations should discover his new lodgings. So now he picked his way with circumspection, and with careful cogitation of a mental map of the streets; bestraightforwardess straightforward journey would take him much too near to Harbour Lane.

  He crossed a swing bridge that gave access to a hundred and fifty yards of roadway ending in another swing bridge. But there was a crook in the road, and when he passed it he found that the second bridge was open. Now in Blackwall an “open” bridge did not mean one that the passenger could cross; that was a “shut” bridge. The “open” bridge was one swung aside to let a ship through, as a pair of gates is opened for a carriage. So Uncle Isaac resigned himself to wait, with an increasingly impatient group, till the bridge should swing into place again and give passage. He stood behind the chain that hung across the road to check traffic, and meditatively rubbed his nose with the Turk’s-head. Presently he grew conscious of a rusty figure on his left, edging unsteadily a little nearer.

  “‘Ow do, Mr. Mundy?” came a hoarse whisper. And Mother Born-drunk, a trifle less drunk than usual, but careful to grasp a post, leered a grimy leer and waved her disengaged hand in his face, as one saluting a friend at a great distance. Uncle Isaac emitted a non-committal grunt — one that might be taken for an accidental cough by the bystanders — and sidled a foot or two away. For he, too, had known Emma Pacey in her more decent days, and, with other acquaintances of that time, was sometimes put to shifts to avoid her.

  Mother Born-drunk left the post and followed her victim. “Don’ run ‘way,” she ejaculated, unsteadily. “I’m ole pal. Mish’ Mundy!” She thrust out a foul paw, and dropped her voice coaxingly. “Len’sh twopence!” Uncle Isaac gazed uneasily in another direction, and took more ground to the right. The waiting passengers, glad of a little amusement, grinned one at another.

  “‘J’ear, Mr. Mundy!” This in a loud voice, with an imperious gesture. “‘J’ear! Can’tche’ answer when a lady speaks t’ye?”

  “Go on, guv’nor!” said a boy encouragingly, sitting on a post. “Where’s yer manners? Take auf yer ‘at to the laidy!” And there was a snigger. Uncle Isaac shifted farther still, and put a group of men between himself and his persecutor. But she was not to be so easily shaken off. Drawing herself up with a scornful majesty that was marred by an occasional lurch, and the bobbing of the tangled bonnet hanging over one ear, she came after Uncle Isaac through the passage readily made by the knot of men.

  “Ho! so it’s this, is it,” she declaimed, with a stately backward sweep of the arm. “If a lady asks a triflin’ favour you insult ‘er. Ye low, common, scoundrel!” This very slowly, with a deep tragedy hiss and a long pause. Then with a piercing note of appeal: “Mr. Mundy! I demand an answer! Once more! Will you lend me twopence?”

  The people (a small crowd by this time) forgot the troublesome bridge, and turned to the new diversion. “Give the laidy twopence!” roared the boy on the post, in a deep bass. “‘Arf a pint ‘ud save ‘er life!”

  Uncle Isaac looked desperately about him, but he saw no sympathy. Dockmen, workmen, boys — all were agog to see as much fun as possible in the time at disposal. The pursuing harpy came a step nearer, and bawled again, “Will you lend me twopence?”

  “No!” cried Uncle Isaac, driven to bay at last. “No, I won’t! Go away! Go away, you — infamious creacher!”

  “You won’t?”

  “No, not by no means. Go away. Y’ought to be ashamed of yerself, you — you — you opstroperous faggit!”

  “Calls ‘isself a gen’leman,” she said, lifting her gaze to the clouds. “Calls ‘isself a gen’leman, an’ uses such language to a lady!”

  “Shockin’,” said one in the hilarious crowd. “What a wicked ole bloke!”

  Uncle Isaac gave another unquiet glance about him, and moved another yard. The woman brought her eyes to earth again, and: “Won’t gimme twopence,” she proclaimed, “an’ I’m a orficer’s widow! Never mind, len’ me a penny; on’y a penny, Mr. Mundy. Do, there’sh a dear! O you are a ole duck!” And Mother Born-drunk stumbled toward Uncle Isaac with affectionately extended arms.

  The crowd shrieked with joy, but Uncle Isaac turned and ran, one hand clapped to the crown of his very tall hat. He would wait for no bridge now, but get away as best he could. The boys yelled and whistled, and kept up at an easy trot with the quick scuttle of his short legs; behind them came Mother Born-drunk, tripping and floundering, spurred to infuriate chase by sight and sound of her unchanging enemies, the boys, and growing at every step more desirous of clawing at one of them than of
catching Uncle Isaac.

  As for him, he dropped his hat once, and nearly fell on it, in looking behind. So he thrust it under his arm as he scurried past the bend in the road; and there despair seized him, for now the other bridge was open too. Which escape might he make first? At the end from which he had turned back, a great liner was being towed through at a snail’s pace, funnels and masts scarce seeming to move across the street. But at this end a small coaster went out briskly, and her mizzen was more than half over now. The woman was less than twenty yards off, but though she still staggered nearer, she was engaged with boys. Uncle Isaac put panic aside, and resolved on dignity. He took his hat from under his arm, and began to brush it on his sleeve.

  Mother Born-drunk was in the hands of her enemies, though there were fewer than usual. She swore and swiped at them, and they flung and yelled and danced. But they drew nearer Uncle Isaac, for it was a new variation in the sport to involve an old gentleman with his Sunday clothes on. Then shouted the woman breathlessly: “P’lice! p’lice! Mish’ Mundy, I’ll give y’ in charge for annoyin’ me. ‘J’ear!” She came very near and made a catch at him, which he dodged without regard to dignity. “Mish’ Mundy! Stand a drop — just a little drop for ole times! If ye don’t stand a drop I’ll give y’ in charge!”

  The coaster was through, and soon the bridge would shut. Uncle Isaac moved up toward the chain amid shouts and jibes. “Y’ought to be ashamed o’ yerself,” bawled the woman, “a ole man like you, annoyin’ a lady!”

  But the men were at the winch, and the bridge swung. First of all the impatient passengers, Uncle Isaac sprang on the moving iron and got across at peril of life and limb ere the sections were still. He heard a louder shout of laughter from behind, where Mother Born-drunk, forgetting the chain as she made for the bridge, had sprawled over it where it hung low in the middle; and he quickened his pace.