“Is it Miss Farquhar? Yes, it is. I was not sure. Yes, thank you indeed. Very gratifying.”
Quite a young lady, surprising. The father seemed a common sort of fellow. So she knew about the monuments at Culworth, and at Marston St. Lawrence? Had read about them in a newspaper? Fancy remembering. Yes, the stonework at Culworth had proved most successful.
Before he knew how it happened the other callers had gone, and Miss Farquhar was telling him about her rogue of a stepfather who had disappeared without leaving an address, so that it was impossible to get any money out of him to pay the rent.
“So I was wondering, Mr. Burnell, now you will be having so much work in the Inner Temple, whether you expect to employ several apprentices who will have to be housed and boarded? I know my mother would be delighted to lodge them for you, so close to your yard in Cursitor Street. If we did that, then we could pay the rent just the same as before, and you would have none of the bother of wondering what to do with the house yourself.”
She spoke quickly, with a disarming smile, and he found himself agreeing to everything she said. Certainly he would be employing more apprentices. How many rooms could they spare? Actually, only two, she admitted, but then taking only two lodgers would ensure greater comfort. Any more than two would make a crowd—Mr. Burnell would understand that—and they might be rowdy, and naturally that would never do, for it would reflect upon Mr. Burnell.
Mr. Thomas Burnell was given no time to agree. She had it decided, had paid him a quarter’s rent in advance (borrowed from Mr. Day) to seal the new bargain, and had taken herself upstairs again to inform her mother of the transaction before he had given the matter two minutes of serious thought. He supposed it would work out in practice, and it was really of not much importance. What happened in the Inner Temple meant more to him than a little trifle about lodgings in Black Raven Passage.
Mary Anne experienced rather more difficulty with her family. Her mother, as with any new suggestion, looked apprehensive.
“Lodgers!” she exclaimed. “Coming in with dirty boots and throwing their things all over the place.”
“The boys do that already. Two more won’t make any difference.”
“Besides, which rooms shall we give them?”
“There are two good rooms in the attic.”
“I shall hardly know how to feed them. They will be bound to have large appetites.”
“They will be paying for their appetites, don’t forget that.”
“I don’t know what to say, Mary Anne. Lodgers. It’s hardly genteel.”
“It’s hardly genteel to starve in the street. If we don’t take lodgers, we shall.”
“I think you should ask advice from Mr. Day.”
“Mr. Day has nothing to do with it.”
Mrs. Farquhar protested, the boys grumbled, but Mary Anne had her way. The attics were scrubbed, curtains were hung at the small windows, and strips of matting ordered from a shop in Holborn and placed to the account of Mr. Burnell.
“Very nice, very pleasant,” said Mr. Burnell, after a hasty inspection of the two attics, and without an idea that he was expected to pay for the carpets. “And, of course, the whole thing only in the nature of an experiment. James Burton, who is doing very well in the building trade, needs temporary accommodation—a Scot, like yourself, Mrs. Farquhar. I have suggested that he comes here to lodge. And a young apprentice, Joseph Clarke, son of an old friend of mine—you may have heard of him, Thomas Clarke the builder on Snow Hill. Very respectable men, both of them; you shouldn’t have any difficulty with either.”
He bustled off to his business in the Inner Temple, leaving Mrs. Farquhar a prey to nerves.
“These gentlemen won’t expect attics,” she said. “They will take one look at the rooms, and go away.”
“Nonsense!” said Mary Anne. “The Scot will think only of his pocket, and board cheaper with us than elsewhere. If the other is young he’ll sleep sound, and the harder the bed the sweeter the dreams. But please don’t refer to the attics. The rooms are on the third floor.”
A few finishing touches, a picture or two, a twist to the curtain, a flick to a mirror. It only remained for the boarders to arrive.
Unfortunately Mary Anne was not in Black Raven Passage at the exact moment when Mr. Burton and Mr. Clarke chose to install themselves. She had it all arranged that she and her mother would receive them in the parlor (no longer called the living room—nobody had talked of a living room at Ham), and after a few minutes’ polite conversation she was to escort the boarders to the third floor and leave them to unpack. After which dinner, not supper, would be served at six o’clock.
Fate willed otherwise. Mary Anne, having called on Mr. Day at the printing house in Fleet Street to borrow a further loan, money being a little tight until the lodgers paid the first installment, returned home later than she expected, to find her mother in a fluster.
“They’ve come,” she said, “and I hardly knew what to do, so I took them to the rooms at once. One of them came down almost immediately and said he was dining out and did not want any dinner. The second is up there now, and he has called to me twice. Once to say there was not a wardrobe fit to hang his clothes, and the second time to know who was going to brush his boots for him. I suppose it was weak of me, but I told him he must wait until my daughter came home, that she had made the arrangements.”
Mrs. Farquhar was flushed from running up and down the stairs.
“You were perfectly right,” said Mary Anne; “if he’s going to make trouble, I’ll deal with him.” She paused, her hand on the banister. “What do they look like?” she whispered.
“The one who went out I didn’t notice,” said Mrs. Farquhar, “but the one upstairs is tall and dark.”
A thumping sound came from above. The lodger was banging the floor. Mrs. Farquhar looked anxious. “That means he wants something,” she said, “that’s what he did twice before.”
Mary Anne went upstairs, a light of battle in her eyes. Before she arrived at the third floor, the door of one of the attics opened and a young man, without a coat, wearing a fine linen shirt and busily tying a silk cravat, looked down upon her.
“Ah!” he said. “Just in time. I was afraid I should have to wander down all those stairs in my stockinged feet. My boots are dusty. Will you please shine them for me?”
Mary Anne looked at him. She wanted to smack his face, and smack it hard. The fact that he was the best-looking young man she had hitherto seen in her life was of small importance. Business came first, and her status.
“I can get your boots cleaned for you,” she said coldly, “but that is not included in the board and lodging. It will cost you extra.” She would bribe Charley, or George, or Eddie. The boys could take it in turns. They could clean them in the back kitchen, out of sight.
“I don’t mind who cleans my boots,” said the young man, “as long as they clean them well. I happen to be rather particular.” Her cool gaze was disconcerting. He had expected a servant. This was something very different, and for once he was at a loss for words.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but whom am I addressing? My name is Joseph Clarke. At your service.”
“I am Mary Anne Farquhar,” she replied. “I make all arrangements in this house. I gather your friend has gone out to dinner. Will you be dining out too?”
He hesitated a moment. He glanced back over his shoulder at the disorder of his room, the choice of coats, cravats, the preparations for a night on the town. Then he glanced once more at Mary Anne.
“No,” he said. “If convenient to you, I should prefer to dine at home.”
5
Joseph Clarke made it quite clear to them all, this first evening, that there was no necessity for him to earn his living. His father was a rich man and he could lead a life of leisure if he chose. But he had talent, and his father did not like to see this talent wasted. Hence his apprenticeship to Thomas Burnell.
“But of course,” he said carelessly,
“I am not tied in any way. Not like your usual apprentice. I can leave Burnell when it suits me to do so, and perhaps set up on my own. I have not made up my mind.”
The Farquhars watched him with interest. The boys, with scrubbed hands for once, and parted hair, were silent from respect, young Isobel from awe. Their mother, on edge from sudden entertaining after a lapse of years, tried to remember at what point to serve the wine, and whether it was vulgar to put cheese upon the table. Luckily, any faults of etiquette were covered up by her daughter. A boy who stretched his hand across the cloth was slain by a frown. A boy who suddenly hiccoughed had his shin kicked beneath the table. Isobel’s second helping was whisked from under her nose and handed to the boarder with a smile.
The boarder noticed nothing. He was too busy talking about himself.
“My father has retired,” he told them, “and my brothers carry on the business at Snow Hill. They make a very good thing of it. My youngest brother has just gone to Cambridge. He intends to become a parson. Have you ever met an uncle of mine, Alderman Clarke? He expects to be Lord Mayor of London one of these days.”
The boarder drank the wine: he was appreciative. He refused the cheese: he was fastidious. Yes, indeed (in answer to a question from Mrs. Farquhar), he feared he never touched fats of any kind. His digestion would not stand it. The delicate child had grown into the delicate young man.
This was another reason why he was unable to work long hours—he tired easily. Surely it would be better, then, to live in the pure air of the country? The boarder wrinkled his nose in disgust. Certainly not. He would be bored to death in the country. What were his pursuits? He confessed to a fondness for games of chance, but only against skilled players and for high stakes. He had a mild interest in the Turf. Last season he had persuaded his elder brother to buy a curricle. They had raced it to Brighton for a wager, and won two hundred pounds. He liked music, singing, going to the playhouse. Politics were not in his line, and the affairs of the day not worth discussing.
“We were put into this world to enjoy ourselves,” he said, “to do what pleases us best. Miss Farquhar, don’t you agree?”
Miss Farquhar did agree. Before the meal was over she had forgotten the original request to shine his boots. This young man with his mournful eyes, his roman nose, his languid manner, his aristocratic ways, was another matter from the pimpled fellow who had stared at her in church, or the lanky youth who had waved to her so ardently from the house opposite the boarding school in Ham.
This was the type who was having his head chopped off in France. He might have stepped straight off a tumbril. There was romance in every gesture. Later, as the evening wore on and they were alone together in the parlor, her mother having vanished discreetly to the kitchen with the boys and Isobel, he admitted to her that he had been unhappy under his father’s roof ever since his mother died.
“My father makes no excuse for temperament,” he said, “elation one moment, despair the next. The only thing that counts in his eyes is solid achievement. Sometimes I have been prostrate with fatigue. He calls it idleness. I need the stimulation of good company. He terms this riffraff. The plain fact is, I am misunderstood.”
Mary Anne listened, enraptured. For three years she had heard nothing but female chitchat, the only male voice the rector of Ham’s when he visited the school on Sunday. The tavern gossip of her stepfather and his cronies had been good in days gone by, but this was different. For the first time in her life she had a handsome young man all to herself, only too ready to pour out his heart. The head could be forgotten. The soul was all.
“When I saw you on the stairs this evening I felt an instant sympathy between us, a bond of recognition. You felt it too?” he said.
She had wanted to slap his face, but no matter. That was over. Wine, to which she was unaccustomed, loosened the tongue.
“To tell you the truth, I care for no one in this neighborhood,” she answered. “Keeping house for my mother is a dull occupation. I want much more out of life than that.”
What did she want? She did not know. But as he stared at her in admiration something hitherto unawakened stirred within her. The combination of artist and young gentleman of leisure was intoxicating to a girl fresh from school. The genteel ways of Ham had temporarily softened the sharp perception of the cockney child. At fifteen, emotions ripened, the pulse quickened, but intuition flagged.
Mary Anne was ready for her first love affair. At this moment almost anyone would have sufficed. A printer from the house of Mr. Hughes, a butcher’s boy with bright eyes up the passage, a stranger alighting from a coach in Holborn and raising his hat at sight of her—all these laid the foundations of a dream, and here was the dream personified in the person of Joseph Clarke, aged twenty-one.
Propinquity was all that was necessary, the sharing of a common roof. Black Raven Passage was not so much broader than Bowling Inn Alley, but the full moon looked better from the doorstep. The sky had fullness, the drains were more discreet. It was possible to see the stars from an attic window, even with a jealous young brother thumping the ceiling of the room below.
James Burton, the other boarder, gave no trouble. A man of thirty, hardworking, with many friends, he returned to his lodgings to sleep, and that was all. Joseph and Mary Anne were thrown together.
The first kiss took her by surprise and startled her. Scuffles there had been before, with playmates in Bowling Inn Alley, sniggers and pinches and boxings of ears. Tomboy foolery. Now she was faced with reality. Joseph Clarke, an apprentice still, had yet to prove his worth as a carver of stone: he needed no credentials as a lover. Neither rough nor brusque, he kissed with determination. The apologetic peck was not for him, nor the murmur, “Forgive me.”
Mary Anne experienced in full measure the torment and ecstasy of the first embrace. She went to her room bewildered, happy, but instinct warned her, “This is one of the things I keep from mother.”
From Charley too, who watched, suspicious, at half-open doors, who noticed that Joseph’s socks were mended and not his own, that the boarder had the white meat from the fowl and he the leg.
Mary Anne was in love. She had no thought for anyone but Joseph. The day was interminable until he returned from the stone yard; so interminable that she was forced to pass it two or three times during the course of the day, on invented errands. He would break off from his work to come to her, advancing with that slow and easy step she found so irresistible, and while they talked by the wall she knew that the other apprentices were watching her, appraising her, coupling their names together, thus adding to excitement.
Yet the adult world was hostile to first love, frowning, disapproving. First love was something to conceal from prying eyes.
“You were very late to bed last night. I heard your door. What were you doing?”
“I was chatting to Joseph Clarke.”
“Was Mr. Burton with you?”
“No… He had gone out.”
There was silence, a chill air. Nothing further was said, but in a flash Mary Anne was reminded of former silences, former chills, when Bob Farquhar had seized his stick and sauntered down the alley to take the air. Now she sympathized and understood. There must be secrecy.
“Mrs. Farquhar, ma’am, would you permit Miss Mary Anne to take a walk with me this evening after dinner? It’s a pity to stay indoors on such a fine night.”
“A walk? I had rather expected her to stay with me. There is so much sewing to be done, and she knows my eyesight is poor.”
“Mother, the sewing can be done in the morning, when the light is better.”
“I don’t know why anyone should wish to take a walk when they would be more comfortable at home.”
The mute reproach, the sigh, the weary stretching for the workbasket. How could her mother know what it was like to walk up Ludgate Hill on the arm of Joseph Clarke, to see the dome of St. Paul’s by the light of the moon? She signaled with her eyes to her lover, impatient to be gone, and presently, when her m
other was intent upon the sewing, Mary Anne slipped from the room and joined him.
“Can I come with you?” asked Charley, sullen, reproachful too.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t want you.” And then, relenting, “Well, just as far as Fleet Street, but no further.”
The walk, troubling and exciting among the crowds who frequented the taverns and the coffeehouses, served as an excuse for the late return. The narrow courts and alleys gave them shelter, dark doorways a haven from a shower, St. Paul’s, sounding midnight, an echo to stammered words. “Mary Anne, I can’t live without you.”
“But what can we do? Where can we go?”
The first exuberance, the thrill of discovery, passed to guile and all the complications of secrecy—the terror of the creaking door, the hazard of the dark stair, a footfall too loud, a clumsy stumble. These things awakened a sleeping house. Moments that should be prolonged were hastened through fear, finesse and the tender approach were skipped to achieve finality.
Unfortunately facilities did not improve as appetite increased. There was no alternative to the parlor in the small hours. Here they were found, one April morning, by Mrs. Farquhar, who, on pretence of hearing rats in the wainscot but inwardly suspicious for many nights, descended at last the creaking stair.
Escape was impossible, bluster out of the question. They were caught. The immediate result was tears—not from Mary Anne, but from her mother.
“How could you behave so? After all I have taught you and impressed upon you. Creeping down here in the dark like one of the little sluts in the alley. And you, Joseph Clarke, you call yourself the son of a gentleman, accepting board and lodging from me, knowing full well that Mary Anne has no father to protect her.”
Mary Anne Page 5