Great English Short Stories

by Paul Negri (Editor)

  “I say, old chap, don’t think me a beast, but are you at all—er—er—rocky? I mean—if I can be of any service, don’t hesitate! Old acquaintance, don’t you know, and all that——”

  His eyes rolled out again towards the object, and Caister followed them. Out there above the carpet he saw it—his own boot. It dangled, because his knees were crossed, six inches off the ground—split—right across, twice, between lace and toecap. Quite! He knew it. A boot left him from the rôle of Bertie Carstairs, in “The Dupe,” just before the war. Good boots. His only pair, except the boots of Dr. Dominick, which he was nursing. And from the boot he looked back at Bryce-Green, sleek and concerned. A drop, black when it left his heart, suffused his eye behind the monocle; his smile curled bitterly; he said:

  “Not at all, thanks! Why?”

  “Oh! n-n-nothing. It just occurred to me.” His eyes—but Caister had withdrawn the boot. Bryce-Green paid the bill and rose.

  “Old chap, if you’ll excuse me; engagement at half-past two. So awf’ly glad to have seen you. Good-bye!”

  “Good-bye!” said Caister. “And thanks!”

  He was alone. And, chin on hand, he stared through his monocle into an empty coffee cup. Alone with his heart, his boot, his life to come. . . . “And what have you been in lately, Mr. Caister?” “Nothing very much lately. Of course I’ve played almost everything.” “Quite so. Perhaps you’ll leave your address; can’t say anything definite, I’m afraid.” “I—I should—er—be willing to rehearse on approval; or—if I could read the part?” “Thank you, afraid we haven’t got as far as that.” “No? Quite! Well, I shall hear from you, perhaps.” And Caister could see his own eyes looking at the manager. God! What a look. . . . A topping life! A dog’s life! Cadging—cadging—cadging for work! A life of draughty waiting, of concealed beggary, of terrible depressions, of want of food!

  The waiter came skating round as if he desired to clear. Must go! Two young women had come in and were sitting at the other table between him and the door. He saw them look at him, and his sharpened senses caught the whisper:

  “Sure—in the last act. Don’t you see his mêche blanche?”

  “Oh! yes—of course! Isn’t it—wasn’t he——!”

  Caister straightened his back; his smile crept out, he fixed his monocle. They had spotted his Dr. Dominick!

  “If you’ve quite finished, sir, may I clear?”

  “Certainly. I’m going.” He gathered himself and rose. The young women were gazing up. Elegant, with faint smile, he passed them close, managing—so that they could not see—his broken boot.

  1923

  THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS

  George Gissing

  IT WAS five o’clock on a June morning. The dirty-buff blind of the lodging-house bedroom shone like cloth of gold as the sun’s unclouded rays poured through it, transforming all they illumined, so that things poor and mean seemed to share in the triumphant glory of new-born day. In the bed lay a young man who had already been awake for an hour. He kept stirring uneasily, but with no intention of trying to sleep again. His eyes followed the slow movement of the sunshine on the wall-paper, and noted, as they never had done before, the details of the flower pattern, which represented no flower wherewith botanists are acquainted, yet, in this summer light, turned the thoughts to garden and field and hedgerow. The young man had a troubled mind, and his thoughts ran thus:—

  “I must have three months at least, and how am I to live? . . . Fifteen shillings a week—not quite that, if I spread my money out. Can one live on fifteen shillings a week—rent, food, washing? . . . I shall have to leave these lodgings at once. They’re not luxurious, but I can’t live here under twenty-five, that’s clear. . . . Three months to finish my book. It’s good; I’m hanged if it isn’t! This time I shall find a publisher. All I have to do is to stick at my work and keep my mind easy. . . . Lucky that it’s summer; I don’t need fires. Any corner would do for me where I can be quiet and see the sun. . . . Wonder whether some cottager in Surrey would house and feed me for fifteen shillings a week? . . . No use lying here. Better get up and see how things look after an hour’s walk.”

  So the young man arose and clad himself, and went out into the shining street. His name was Goldthorpe. His years were not yet three-and-twenty. Since the age of legal independence he had been living alone in London, solitary and poor, very proud of a wholehearted devotion to the career of authorship. As soon as he slipped out of the stuffy house, the live air, perfumed with freshness from meadows and hills afar, made his blood pulse joyously. He was at the age of hope, and something within him, which did not represent mere youthful illusion, supported his courage in the face of calculations such as would have damped sober experience. With boyish step, so light and springy that it seemed anxious to run and leap, he took his way through a suburb south of Thames, and pushed on towards the first rising of the Surrey hills. And as he walked resolve strengthened itself in his heart. Somehow or other he would live independently through the next three months. If the worst came to the worst, he could earn bread as clerk or labourer, but as long as his money lasted he would pursue his purpose, and that alone. He sang to himself in this gallant determination, happy as if some one had left him a fortune.

  In an ascending road, quiet and tree-shadowed, where the dwellings on either side were for the most part old and small, though here and there a brand-new edifice on a larger scale showed that the neighbourhood was undergoing change such as in our time destroys the picturesque in all London suburbs, the cheery dreamer chanced to turn his eyes upon a spot of desolation which aroused his curiosity and set his fancy at work. Before him stood three deserted houses, a little row once tenanted by middle-class folk, but now for some time unoccupied and unrepaired. They were of brick, but the fronts had a stucco facing cut into imitation of ashlar, and weathered to the sombrest grey. The windows of the ground floor and of that above, and the fanlights above the doors, were boarded up, a guard against unlicensed intrusion; the top story had not been thought to stand in need of this protection, and a few panes were broken. On these dead frontages could be traced the marks of climbing plants, which once hung their leaves about each doorway; dry fragments of the old stem still adhered to the stucco. What had been the narrow strip of fore-garden, railed from the pavement, was now a little wilderness of coarse grass, docks, nettles, and degenerate shrubs. The paint on the doors had lost all colour, and much of it was blistered off; the three knockers had disappeared, leaving indications of rough removal, as if—which was probably the case—they had fallen a prey to marauders. Standing full in the brilliant sunshine, this spectacle of abandonment seemed sadder, yet less ugly, than it would have looked under a gloomy sky. Goldthorpe began to weave stories about its musty squalor. He crossed the road to make a nearer inspection; and as he stood gazing at the dishonoured thresholds, at the stained and cracked boarding of the blind windows, at the rusty paling and the broken gates, there sounded from somewhere near a thin, shaky strain of music, the notes of a concertina played with uncertain hand. The sound seemed to come from within the houses, yet how could that be? Assuredly no one lived under these crazy roofs. The musician was playing “Home, Sweet Home,” and as Goldthorpe listened it seemed to him that the sound was not stationary. Indeed, it moved; it became more distant, then again the notes sounded more distinctly, and now as if the player were in the open air. Perhaps he was at the back of the houses?

  On either side ran a narrow passage, which parted the spot of desolation from inhabited dwellings. Exploring one of these, Goldthorpe found that there lay in the rear a tract of gardens. Each of the three lifeless houses had its garden of about twenty yards long. The bordering wall along the passage allowed a man of average height to peer over it, and Goldthorpe searched with curious eye the piece of ground which was nearest to him. Many a year must have gone by since any gardening was done here. Once upon a time the useful and ornamental had both been represented in this modest space; now, flowers and vegetables, s
uch of them as survived in the struggle for existence, mingled together, and all alike were threatened by a wild, rank growth of grasses and weeds, which had obliterated the beds, hidden the paths, and made of the whole garden plot a green jungle. But Goldthorpe gave only a glance at this still life; his interest was engrossed by a human figure, seated on a campstool near the back wall of the house, and holding a concertina, whence, at this moment, in slow, melancholy strain, “Home, Sweet Home” began to wheeze forth. The player was a middle-aged man, dressed like a decent clerk or shopkeeper, his head shaded with an old straw hat rather too large for him, and on his feet—one of which swung as he sat with legs crossed—a pair of still more ancient slippers, also too large. With head aside, and eyes looking upward, he seemed to listen in a mild ecstasy to the notes of his instrument. He had a round face of much simplicity and good-nature, semicircular eyebrows, pursed little mouth with abortive moustache, and short thin beard fringing the chinless lower jaw. Having observed this unimposing person for a minute or two, himself unseen, Goldthorpe surveyed the rear of the building, anxious to discover any sign of its still serving as human habitation; but nothing spoke of tenancy. The windows on this side were not boarded, and only a few panes were broken; but the chief point of contrast with the desolate front was made by a Virginia creeper, which grew luxuriantly up to the eaves, hiding every sign of decay save those dim, dusty apertures which seemed to deny all possibility of life within. And yet, on looking steadily, did he not discern something at one of the windows on the top story—something like a curtain or a blind? And had not that same window the appearance of having been more recently cleaned than the others? He could not be sure; perhaps he only fancied these things. With neck aching from the strained position in which he had made his survey over the wall, the young man turned away. In the same moment “Home, Sweet Home” came to an end, and, but for the cry of a milkman, the early-morning silence was undisturbed.

  Goldthorpe pursued his walk, thinking of what he had seen, and wondering what it all meant. On his way back he made a point of again passing the deserted houses, and again he peered over the wall of the passage. The man was still there, but no longer seated with the concertina; wearing a round felt hat instead of the straw, he stood almost knee-deep in vegetation, and appeared to be examining the various growths about him. Presently he moved forward, and, with head still bent, approached the lower end of the garden, where, in a wall higher than that over which Goldthorpe made his espial, there was a wooden door. This the man opened with a key, and, having passed out, could be heard to turn a lock behind him. A minute more, and this short, respectable figure came into sight at the end of the passage. Goldthorpe could not resist the opportunity thus offered. Affecting to turn a look of interest towards the nearest roof, he waited until the stranger was about to pass him, then, with civil greeting, ventured upon a question.

  “Can you tell me how these houses come to be in this neglected state?”

  The stranger smiled; a soft, modest, deferential smile such as became his countenance, and spoke in a corresponding voice, which had a vaguely provincial accent.

  “No wonder it surprises you, sir. I should be surprised myself. It comes of quarrels and lawsuits.”

  “So I supposed. Do you know who the property belongs to?”

  “Well, yes, sir. The fact is—it belongs to me.”

  The avowal was made apologetically, and yet with a certain timid pride. Goldthorpe exhibited all the interest he felt. An idea had suddenly sprung up in his mind; he met the stranger’s look, and spoke with the easy good-humour natural to him.

  “It seems a great pity that houses should be standing empty like that. Are they quite uninhabitable? Couldn’t one camp here during this fine summer weather? To tell you the truth, I’m looking for a room—as cheap a room as I can get. Could you let me one for the next three months?”

  The stranger was astonished. He regarded the young man with an uneasy smile.

  “You are joking, sir.”

  “Not a bit of it. Is the thing quite impossible? Are all the rooms in too bad a state?”

  “I won’t say that,” replied the other cautiously, still eyeing his interlocutor with surprised glances. “The upper rooms are really not so bad—that is to say, from a humble point of view. I—I have been looking at them just now. You really mean, sir——?”

  “I’m quite in earnest, I assure you,” cried Goldthorpe cheerily. “You see I’m tolerably well dressed still, but I’ve precious little money, and I want to eke out the little I’ve got for about three months. I’m writing a book. I think I shall manage to sell it when it’s done, but it’ll take me about three months yet. I don’t care what sort of place I live in, so long as it’s quiet. Couldn’t we come to terms?”

  The listener’s visage seemed to grow rounder in progressive astonishment; his eyes declared an emotion akin to awe; his little mouth shaped itself as if about to whistle.

  “A book, sir? You are writing a book? You are a literary man?”

  “Well, a beginner. I have poverty on my side, you see.”

  “Why, it’s like Dr. Johnson!” cried the other, his face glowing with interest. “It’s like Chatterton!—though I’m sure I hope you won’t end like him, sir. It’s like Goldsmith!—indeed it is!”

  “I’ve got half Oliver’s name, at all events,” laughed the young man. “Mine is Goldthorpe.”

  “You don’t say so, sir! What a strange coincidence! Mine, sir, is Spicer. I—I don’t know whether you’d care to come into my garden? We might talk there——”

  In a minute or two they were standing amid the green jungle, which Goldthorpe viewed with delight. He declared it the most picturesque garden he had ever seen.

  “Why, there are potatoes growing there. And what are those things? Jerusalem artichokes? And look at that magnificent thistle; I never saw a finer thistle in my life! And poppies—and marigolds—and broad-beans—and isn’t that lettuce?”

  Mr. Spicer was red with gratification.

  “I feel that something might be done with the garden, sir,” he said. “The fact is, sir, I’ve only lately come into this property, and I’m sorry to say it’ll only be mine for a little more than a year—a year from next midsummer day, sir. There’s the explanation of what you see. It’s leasehold property, and the lease is just coming to its end. Five years ago, sir, an uncle of mine inherited the property from his brother. The houses were then in a very bad state, and only one of them let, and there had been lawsuits going on for a long time between the leaseholder and the ground-landlord—I can’t quite understand these matters, they’re not at all in my line, sir; but at all events there were quarrels and lawsuits, and I’m told one of the tenants was somehow mixed up in it. The fact is, my uncle wasn’t a very well-to-do man, and perhaps he didn’t feel able to repair the houses, especially as the lease was drawing to its end. Would you like to go in and have a look round?”

  They entered by the back door, which admitted them to a little washhouse. The window was over-spun with cobwebs, thick, hoary; each corner of the ceiling was cobweb-packed; long, dusty filaments depended along the walls. Notwithstanding, Goldthorpe noticed that the house had a water-supply; the sink was wet, the tap above it looked new. This confirmed a suspicion in his mind, but he made no remark. They passed into the kitchen. Here again the work of the spider showed thick on every hand. The window, however, though uncleaned for years, had recently been opened; one knew that by the torn and ragged condition of the webs where the sashes joined. And lo! on the window-sill stood a plate, a cup and saucer, a knife, a fork, a spoon—all of them manifestly new-washed. Goldthorpe affected not to see these objects; he averted his face to hide an involuntary smile.

  “I must light a candle,” said Mr. Spicer. “The staircase is quite dark.”

  A candle stood ready, with a box of matches, on the rusty cooking-stove. No fire had burned in the grate for many a long day; of that the visitor assured himself. Save the objects on the window-sill, no
evidence of human occupation was discoverable. Having struck a light, Mr. Spicer advanced. In the front passage, on the stairs, on the landing, every angle and every projection had its drapery of cobwebs. The stuffy, musty air smelt of cobwebs; so, at all events, did Goldthorpe explain to himself a peculiar odour which he seemed never to have smelt. It was the same in the two rooms on the first floor. Through the boarded windows of that in front penetrated a few thin rays from the golden sky; they gleamed upon dust and web, on faded, torn wall-paper and a fireplace in ruins.

  “I shouldn’t recommend you to take either of these rooms,” said Mr. Spicer, looking nervously at his companion. “They really can’t be called attractive.”

  “Those on the top are healthier, no doubt,” was the young man’s reply. “I noticed that some of the window-glass is broken. That must have been good for airing.”

  Mr. Spicer grew more and more nervous. He opened his little round mouth, very much like a fish gasping, but seemed unable to speak. Silently he led the way to the top story, still amid cobwebs; the atmosphere was certainly purer up here, and when they entered the first room they found themselves all at once in such a flood of glorious sunshine that Goldthorpe shouted with delight.

  “Ah, I could live here! Would it cost much to have panes put in? An old woman with a broom would do the rest.” He added in a moment, “But the back windows are not broken, I think?”

  “No—I think not—I—no——”

  Mr. Spicer gasped and stammered. He stood holding the candle (its light invisible) so that the grease dripped steadily on his trousers.

  “Let’s have a look at the other,” cried Goldthorpe. “It gets the afternoon sun, no doubt. And one would have a view of the garden.”