Paul Kelver

by Jerome Klapka Jerome

  It established for me a useful reputation. The sub-editor of one evening paper condescended so far as to come out in his shirt-sleeves and shake hands with me.

  “That's the sort of thing we want,” he told me; “a light touch, a bit of humour.”

  I snatched fun from fires (I sincerely trust the insurance premiums were not overdue); culled quaintness from street rows; extracted merriment from catastrophes the most painful, and prospered.

  Though often within a stone's throw of the street, I unremittingly avoided the old house at Poplar. I was suffering inconvenience at this period by reason of finding myself two distinct individuals, contending with each other. My object was to encourage the new Paul—the sensible, practical, pushful Paul, whose career began to look promising; to drive away from interfering with me his strangely unlike twin—the old childish Paul of the sad, far-seeing eyes. Sometimes out of the cracked looking-glass his wistful, yearning face would plead to me; but I would sternly shake my head. I knew well his cunning. Had I let him have his way, he would have led me through the maze of streets he knew so well, past the broken railings (outside which he would have left my body standing), along the weedy pathway, through the cracked and dented door, up the creaking staircase to the dismal little chamber where we once—he and I together—had sat dreaming foolish dreams.

  “Come,” he would whisper; “it is so near. Let us push aside the chest of drawers very quietly, softly raise the broken sash, prop it open with the Latin dictionary, lean our elbows on the sill, listen to the voices of the weary city, voices calling to us from the darkness.”

  But I was too wary to be caught. “Later on,” I would reply to him; “when I have made my way, when I am stronger to withstand your wheedling. Then I will go with you, if you are still in existence, my sentimental little friend. We will dream again the old impractical, foolish dreams—and laugh at them.”

  So he would fade away, and in his place would nod to me approvingly a businesslike-looking, wide-awake young fellow.

  But to one sentimental temptation I succumbed. My position was by now assured; there was no longer any reason for my hiding myself. I determined to move westward. I had not intended to soar so high, but passing through Guildford Street one day, the creeper-covered corner house that my father had once thought of taking recalled itself to me. A card was in the fanlight. I knocked and made enquiries. A bed-sitting-room upon the third floor was vacant. I remembered it well the moment the loquacious landlady opened its door.

  “This shall be your room, Paul,” said my father. So clearly his voice sounded behind me that I turned, forgetting for the moment it was but a memory. “You will be quiet here, and we can shut out the bed and washstand with a screen.”

  So my father had his way. It was a pleasant, sunny little room, overlooking the gardens of the hospital. I followed my father's suggestion, shut out the bed and washstand with a screen. And sometimes of an evening it would amuse me to hear my father turn the handle of the door.

  “How are you getting on—all right?”

  “Famously.”

  Often there came back to me the words he had once used. “You must be the practical man, Paul, and get on. Myself, I have always been somewhat of a dreamer. I meant to do such great things in the world, and somehow I suppose I aimed too high. I wasn't—practical.”

  “But ought not one to aim high?” I had asked.

  My father had fidgeted in his chair. “It is very difficult to say. It is all so—so very ununderstandable. You aim high and you don't hit anything—at least, it seems as if you didn't. Perhaps, after all, it is better to aim at something low, and—and hit it. Yet it seems a pity—one's ideals, all the best part of one—I don't know why it is. Perhaps we do not understand.”

  For some months I had been writing over my own name. One day a letter was forwarded to me by an editor to whose care it had been addressed. It was a short, formal note from the maternal Sellars, inviting me to the wedding of her daughter with a Mr. Reginald Clapper. I had almost forgotten the incident of the Lady 'Ortensia, but it was not unsatisfactory to learn that it had terminated pleasantly. Also, I judged from an invitation having been sent me, that the lady wished me to be witness of the fact that my desertion had not left her disconsolate. So much gratification I felt I owed her, and accordingly, purchasing a present as expensive as my means would permit, I made my way on the following Thursday, clad in frock coat and light grey trousers, to Kennington Church.

  The ceremony was already in progress. Creeping on tiptoe up the aisle, I was about to slip into an empty pew, when a hand was laid upon my sleeve.

  “We're all here,” whispered the O'Kelly; “just room for ye.”

  Squeezing his hand as I passed, I sat down between the Signora and Mrs. Peedles. Both ladies were weeping; the Signora silently, one tear at a time clinging fondly to her pretty face as though loath to fall from it; Mrs. Peedles copiously, with explosive gurgles, as of water from a bottle.

  “It is such a beautiful service,” murmured the Signora, pressing my hand as I settled myself down. “I should so—so love to be married.”

  “Me darling,” whispered the O'Kelly, seizing her other hand and kissing it covertly behind his open Prayer Book, “perhaps ye will be—one day.”

  The Signora through her tears smiled at him, but with a sigh shook her head.

  Mrs. Peedles, clad, so far as the dim November light enabled me to judge, in the costume of Queen Elizabeth—nothing regal; the sort of thing one might assume to have been Her Majesty's second best, say third best, frock—explained that weddings always reminded her how fleeting a thing was love.

  “The poor dears!” she sobbed. “But there, there's no telling. Perhaps they'll be happy. I'm sure I hope they may be. He looks harmless.”

  Jarman, stretching out a hand to me from the other side of Mrs. Peedles, urged me to cheer up. “Don't wear your 'eart upon your sleeve,” he advised. “Try and smile.”

  In the vestry I met old friends. The maternal Sellars, stouter than ever, had been accommodated with a chair—at least, I assumed so, she being in a sitting posture; the chair itself was not in evidence. She greeted me with more graciousness than I had expected, enquiring after my health with pointedness and an amount of tender solicitude that, until the explanation broke upon me, somewhat puzzled me.

  Mr. Reginald Clapper was a small but energetic gentleman, much impressed, I was glad to notice, with a conviction of his own good fortune. He expressed the greatest delight at being introduced to me, shook me heartily by the hand, and hoped we should always be friends.

  “Won't be my fault if we're not,” he added. “Come and see us whenever you like.” He repeated this three times. I gathered the general sentiment to be that he was acting, if anything, with excess of generosity.

  Mrs. Reginald Clapper, as I was relieved to know she now was, received my salute to a subdued murmur of applause. She looked to my eyes handsomer than when I had last seen her, or maybe my taste was growing less exacting. She also trusted she might always regard me as a friend. I replied that it would be my hope to deserve the honour; whereupon she kissed me of her own accord, and embracing her mother, shed some tears, explaining the reason to be that everybody was so good to her.

  Brother George, less lank than formerly, hampered by a pair of enormous white kid gloves, superintended my signing of the register, whispering to me sympathetically: “Better luck next time, old cock.”

  The fat young lady—or, maybe, the lean young lady, grown stouter, I cannot say for certain—who feared I had forgotten her, a thing I assured her utterly impossible, was good enough to say that, in her opinion, I was worth all the others put together.

  “And so I told her,” added the fat young lady—or the lean one grown stouter, “a dozen times if I told her once. But there!”

  I murmured my obligations.

  Cousin Joseph, 'whom I found no difficulty in recognising by reason of his watery eyes, appeared not so chirpy as of yore.

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nbsp; “You take my tip,” advised Cousin Joseph, drawing me aside, “and keep out of it.”

  “You speak from experience?” I suggested.

  “I'm as fond of a joke,” said the watery-eyed Joseph, “as any man. But when it comes to buckets of water—”

  A reminder from the maternal Sellars that breakfast had been ordered for eleven o'clock caused a general movement and arrested Joseph's revelations.

  “See you again, perhaps,” he murmured, and pushed past me.

  What Mrs. Sellars, I suppose, would have alluded to as a cold col-la-shon had been arranged for at a restaurant near by. I walked there in company with Uncle and Aunt Gutton; not because I particularly desired their companionship, but because Uncle Gutton, seizing me by the arm, left me no alternative.

  “Now then, young man,” commenced Uncle Gutton kindly, but boisterously so soon as we were in the street, at some little distance behind the others, “if you want to pitch into me, you pitch away. I shan't mind, and maybe it'll do you good.”

  I informed him that nothing was further from my desire.

  “Oh, all right,” returned Uncle Gutton, seemingly disappointed. “If you're willing to forgive and forget, so am I. I never liked you, as I daresay you saw, and so I told Rosie. 'He may be cleverer than he looks,' I says, 'or he may be a bigger fool than I think him, though that's hardly likely. You take my advice and get a full-grown article, then you'll know what you're doing.'”

  I told him I thought his advice had been admirable.

  “I'm glad you think so,” he returned, somewhat puzzled; “though if you wanted to call me names I shouldn't have blamed you. Anyhow, you've took it like a sensible chap. You've got over it, as I always told her you would. Young men out of story-books don't die of broken hearts, even if for a month or two they do feel like standing on their head in the water-butt.”

  “Why, I was in love myself three times,” explained Uncle Gutton, “before I married the old woman.”

  Aunt Gutton sighed and said she was afraid gentlemen didn't feel these things as much as they ought to.

  “They've got their living to earn,” retorted Uncle Gutton.

  I agreed with Uncle Gutton that life could not be wasted in vain regret.

  “As for the rest,” admitted Uncle Gutton, handsomely, “I was wrong. You've turned out better than I expected you would.”

  I thanked him for his improved opinion, and as we entered the restaurant we shook hands.

  Minikin we found there waiting for us. He explained that having been able to obtain only limited leave of absence from business, he had concluded the time would be better employed at the restaurant than at the church. Others were there also with whom I was unacquainted, young sparks, admirers, I presume, of the Lady 'Ortensia in her professional capacity, fellow-clerks of Mr. Clapper, who was something in the City. Altogether we must have numbered a score.

  Breakfast was laid in a large room on the first floor. The wedding presents stood displayed upon a side-table. My own, with my card attached, had not been seen by Mrs. Clapper till that moment. She and her mother lingered, examining it.

  “Real silver!” I heard the maternal Sellars whisper, “Must have paid a ten pound note for it.”

  “I hope you'll find it useful,” I said.

  The maternal Sellars, drifting away, joined the others gathered together at the opposite end of the room.

  “I suppose you think I set my cap at you merely because you were a gentleman,” said the Lady 'Ortensia.

  “Don't let's talk about it,” I answered. “We were both foolish.”

  “I don't want you to think it was merely that,” continued the Lady 'Ortensia. “I did like you. And I wouldn't have disgraced you—at least, I'd have tried not to. We women are quick to learn. You never gave me time.”

  “Believe me, things are much better as they are,” I said.

  “I suppose so,” she answered. “I was a fool.” She glanced round; we still had the corner to ourselves. “I told a rare pack of lies,” she said; “I didn't seem able to help it; I was feeling sore all over. But I have always been ashamed of myself. I'll tell them the truth, if you like.”

  I thought I saw a way of making her mind easy. “My dear girl,” I said, “you have taken the blame upon yourself, and let me go scot-free. It was generous of you.”

  “You mean that?” she asked.

  “The truth,” I answered, “would shift all the shame on to me. It was I who broke my word, acted shabbily from beginning to end.”

  “I hadn't looked at it in that light,” she replied. “Very well, I'll hold my tongue.”

  My place at breakfast was to the left of the maternal Sellars, the Signora next to me, and the O'Kelly opposite. Uncle Gutton faced the bride and bridegroom. The disillusioned Joseph was hidden from me by flowers, so that his voice, raised from time to time, fell upon my ears, embellished with the mysterious significance of the unseen oracle.

  For the first quarter of an hour or so the meal proceeded almost in silence. The maternal Sellars when not engaged in whispered argument with the perspiring waiter, was furtively occupied in working sums upon the table-cloth by aid of a blunt pencil. The Signora, strangely unlike her usual self, was not in talkative mood.

  “It was so kind of them to invite me,” said the Signora, speaking low. “But I feel I ought not to have come.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I'm not fit to be here,” murmured the Signora in a broken voice. “What right have I at wedding breakfasts? Of course, for dear Willie it is different. He has been married.”

  The O'Kelly, who never when the Signora was present seemed to care much for conversation in which she was unable to participate, took advantage of his neighbour's being somewhat deaf to lapse into abstraction. Jarman essayed a few witticisms of a general character, of which nobody took any notice. The professional admirers of the Lady 'Ortensia, seated together at a corner of the table, appeared to be enjoying a small joke among themselves. Occasionally, one or another of them would laugh nervously. But for the most part the only sounds to be heard were the clatter of the knives and forks, the energetic shuffling of the waiter, and a curious hissing noise as of escaping gas, caused by Uncle Gutton drinking champagne.

  With the cutting, or, rather, the smashing into a hundred fragments, of the wedding cake—a work that taxed the united strength of bride and bridegroom to the utmost—the atmosphere lost something of its sombreness. The company, warmed by food, displaying indications of being nearly done, commenced to simmer. The maternal Sellars, putting away with her blunt pencil considerations of material nature, embraced the table with a smile.

  “But it is a sad thing,” sighed the maternal Sellars the next moment, with a shake of her huge head, “when your daughter marries, and goes away and leaves you.”

  “Damned sight sadder,” commented Uncle Gutton, “when she don't go off, but hangs on at home year after year and expects you to keep her.”

  I credit Uncle Gutton with intending this as an aside for the exclusive benefit of the maternal Sellars; but his voice was not of the timbre that lends itself to secrecy. One of the bridesmaids, a plain, elderly girl, bending over her plate, flushed scarlet. I concluded her to be Miss Gutton.

  “It doesn't seem to me,” said Aunt Gutton from the other end of the table, “that gentlemen are as keen on marrying nowadays as they used to be.”

  “Got to know a bit about it, I expect,” sounded the small, shrill voice of the unseen Joseph.

  “To my thinking,” exclaimed a hatchet-faced gentleman, “one of the evils crying most loudly for redress at the present moment is the utterly needless and monstrous expense of legal proceedings.” He spoke rapidly and with warmth. “Take divorce. At present, what is it? The rich man's luxury.”

  Conversation appeared to be drifting in a direction unsuitable to the occasion; but Jarman was fortunately there to seize the helm.

  “The plain fact of the matter is,” said Jarman, “girls have gone up i
n value. Time was, so I've heard, when they used to be given away with a useful bit of household linen, maybe a chair or two. Nowadays—well, it's only chaps wallowing in wealth like Clapper there as can afford a really first-class article.”

  Mr. Clapper, not a gentleman in other respects of exceptional brilliancy, possessed one quality that popularity-seekers might have envied him: the ability to explode on the slightest provocation into a laugh instinct with all the characteristics of genuine delight.

  “Give and take,” observed the maternal Sellars, so soon as Mr. Clapper's roar had died away; “that's what you've got to do when you're married.”

  “Give a deal more than you bargained for and take what you don't want—that sums it up,” came the bitter voice of the unseen.

  “Oh, do be quiet, Joe,” advised the stout young lady, from which I concluded she had once been the lean young lady. “You talk enough for a man.”

  “Can't I open my mouth?” demanded the indignant oracle.

  “You look less foolish when you keep it shut,” returned the stout young lady.

  “We'll show them how to get on,” observed the Lady 'Ortensia to her bridegroom, with a smile.

  Mr. Clapper responded with a gurgle.

  “When me and the old girl there fixed things up,” said Uncle Gutton, “we didn't talk no nonsense, and we didn't start with no misunderstandings. 'I'm not a duke,' I says—”

  “Had she been mistaking you for one?” enquired Minikin.

  Mr. Clapper commented, not tactfully, but with appreciative laugh. I feared for a moment lest Uncle Gutton's little eyes should leave his head.

  “Not being a natural-born, one-eyed fool,” replied Uncle Gutton, glaring at the unabashed Minikin, “she did not. 'I'm not a duke,' I says, and she had sense enough to know as I was talking sarcastic like. 'I'm not offering you a life of luxury and ease. I'm offering you myself, just what you see, and nothing more.'”