by Unknown
“She has had a good day, but the doctor, he — the doctor is afeard she is dying.”
Already I repented my question. William and his wife seemed in league against me, when they might so easily have chosen some other member.
“Pooh the doctor,” I said.
“Yes, sir,” he answered.
“Have you been married long, William?”
“Eight years, sir. Eight years ago she was — I —
I mind her when... and now the doctor says” —
The fellow gaped at me. “More coffee, sir?” he asked.
“What is her ailment?”
“She was always one of the delicate kind, but full of spirit, and — and you see she has had a baby lately” —
“William!”
“And she — I — the doctor is afeard she’s not picking up.”
“I feel sure she will pick up.”
“Yes, sir?” —
It must have been the wine I had drunk that made me tell him:
“I was once married, William. My wife — it was just such a case as yours.”
“She did not get better, sir?”
“No.”
After a pause, he said, “Thank you, sir,” meaning for the sympathy that made me tell him that. But it must have been the wine.
“That little girl comes here with a message from your wife?”
“Yes; if she nods three times, it means my wife is a little better.”
“She nodded thrice to-day.”
“But she is told to do that to relieve me, and maybe those nods don’t tell the truth.”
“Is she your girl?”
“No, we have none but the baby. She is a neighbor’s. She comes twice a day.”
“It is heartless of her parents not to send her every hour.”
“But she is six years old,” he said, “and has a house and two sisters to look after in the daytime, and a dinner to cook. Gentlefolk don’t understand.”
“I suppose you live in some low part, William.”
“Off Drury Lane,” he answered, flushing; “but — but it isn’t low. You see, we were never used to anything better, and I mind when I let her see the house before we were married, she — she a sort of cried, because she was so proud of it. That was eight years ago, and now — she’s afeard she’ll die when I’m away at my work.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Never. She always says she is feeling a little stronger.”
“Then how can you know she is afraid of that?”
“I don’t know how I know, sir, but when I am leaving the house in the morning I look at her from the door, and she looks at me, and then I — I know.”
“A green Chartreuse, William!”
I tried to forget William’s vulgar story in billiards, but he had spoiled my game. My opponent, to whom I can give twenty, ran out when I was sixty-seven, and I put aside my cue pettishly. That in itself was bad form, but what would they have thought had they known that a waiter’s impertinence caused it! I grew angrier with William as the night wore on, and next day I punished him by giving my orders through another waiter.
As I had my window seat, I could not but see that the girl was late again. Somehow I dawdled over my coffee. I had an evening paper before me, but there was so little in it that my eyes found more of interest in the street. It did not matter to me whether William’s wife died, but when that girl had promised to come, why did she not come? These lower classes only give their word to break it. The coffee was undrinkable.
At last I saw her. William was at another window, pretending to do something with the curtains. I stood up, pressing closer to the window. The coffee had been so bad that I felt shaky. She nodded three times and smiled. —
“She is a little better,” William whispered to me, almost gayly.
“Whom are you speaking of?” I asked, coldly, and immediately retired to the billiard-room, where I played a capital game. The coffee was much better there than in the dining-room.
Several days passed, and I took care to show William that I had forgotten his maunderings. I chanced to see the little girl (though I never looked for her) every evening and she always nodded three times, save once, when she shook her head, and then William’s face grew white as a napkin. I remember this incident because that night I could not get into a pocket. So badly did I play that the thought of it kept me awake in bed, and that, again, made me wonder how William’s wife was. Next day I went to the club early (which was not my custom) to see the new books. Being in the club at any rate, I looked into the dining-room to ask William if I had left my gloves there, and the sight of him reminded me of his wife, so I asked for her. He shook his head mournfully, and I went off in a rage.
So accustomed am I to the club, that when I dine elsewhere I feel uncomfortable next morning, as if I had missed a dinner. William knew this; yet here he was, hounding me out of the club! That evening I dined (as the saying is) at a restaurant, where no sauce was served with the asparagus. Furthermore, as if that were not triumph enough for William, his doleful face came between me and every dish, and I seemed to see his wife dying to annoy me.
I dined next day at the club, for self-preservation, taking, however, a table in the middle of the room, and engaging a waiter who had once nearly poisoned me by not interfering when I put two lumps of sugar into my coffee instead of one, which is my allowance. But no William came to me to acknowledge his humiliation, and by and by I became aware that he was not in the room. Suddenly the thought struck me that his wife must be dead, and I — It was the worst-cooked and the worst-served dinner I ever had in the club.
I tried the smoking-room. Usually the talk there is entertaining; but on that occasion it was so frivolous that I did not remain five minutes. In the card-room a member told me, excitedly, that a policeman had spoken rudely to him; and my strange comment was:
“After all, it is a small matter.”
In the library, where I had not been for years, I found two members asleep, and, to my surprise, William on a ladder dusting books.
“You have not heard, sir?” he said in answer to my raised eyebrows. Descending the ladder he whispered, tragically:
“It was last evening, sir. I — I lost my head and I — swore at a member.”
I stepped back from William, and glanced apprehensively at the two members. They still slept.
“I hardly knew,” William went on, “what I was doing all day yesterday, for I had left my wife so weakly that” —
* — I stamped my foot.
“I beg your pardon for speaking of her,” he had the grace to say, “but I couldn’t help slipping to the window often yesterday to look for Jenny, and when she did come and I saw she was crying, it — it a sort of confused me, and I didn’t know right, sir, what I was doing. I hit against a member, Mr. Myddleton Finch, and he — he jumped and swore at me. Well, sir, I had just touched him after all, and I was so miserable, it a kind of stung me to be treated like — like that, and me a man as well as him, and I lost my senses, and — and I swore back.” William’s shamed head sank on his chest, but I even let pass his insolence in likening himself to a member of the club, so afraid was I of the sleepers waking and detecting me in talk with a waiter.
“For the love of God,” William cried, with coarse emotion, “don’t let them dismiss me!”
“Speak lower!” I said. “Who sent you here?”
“I was turned out of the dining-room at once, and told to attend to the library until they had decided what to do with me. Oh, sir, I’ll lose my place!” He was blubbering, as if a change of waiters was a matter of importance.
“This is very bad, William,” I said. “I fear I can do nothing for you.”
“Have mercy on a distracted man!” he entreated. “I’ll go on my knees to Mr. Myddleton Finch.” How could I but despise a fellow who would be thus abject for a pound a week?
“I dare not tell her,” he continued, “that I have lost my place. She would just fall ba
ck and die.”
“I forbade your speaking of your wife,” I said, sharply, “unless you can speak pleasantly of her.”
“But she may be worse now, sir, and I cannot even see Jenny from here. The library windows look to the back.”
“If she dies,” I said, “it will be a warning to you to marry a stronger woman next time.”
Now, everyone knows that there is little real affection among the lower orders. As soon as they have lost one mate they take another. Yet William, forgetting our relative positions, drew himself up and raised his fist, and if I had not stepped back I swear he would have struck me.
The highly improper words William used I will omit, out of consideration for him. Even while he was apologizing for them I retired to the smoking-room, where I found the cigarettes so badly rolled that they would not keep alight. After a little I remembered that I wanted to see Myddleton Finch about an improved saddle of which a friend of his has the patent. He was in the news-room, and having questioned him about the saddle, I said:
“By the way, what is this story about your swearing at one of the waiters?”
“You mean about his swearing at me,” Myddleton Finch replied, reddening.
“I am glad that was it,” I said. “For I could not believe you guilty of such bad form.”
“If I did swear” — he was beginning, but I went on:
“The version which reached me was that you swore at him, and he repeated the word. I heard he was to be dismissed and you reprimanded.”
“Who told you that?” asked Myddleton Finch, who is a timid man. — #
“I forget; it is club talk,” I replied, lightly. “But of course the committee will take your word. The waiter, whichever one he is, richly deserves his dismissal for insulting you without provocation.”
Then our talk returned to the saddle, but Myddleton Finch was abstracted, and presently he said:
“Do you know, I fancy I was wrong in thinking that waiter swore at me, and I’ll withdraw my charge tomorrow.”
Myddleton Finch then left me, and, sitting alone, I realized that I had been doing William a service. To some slight extent I may have intentionally helped him to retain his place in the club, and I now see the reason, which was that he alone knows precisely to what extent I like my claret heated.
For a mere second I remembered William’s remark that he should not be able to see the girl Jenny from the library windows. Then this recollection drove from my head that I had only dined in the sense that my dinner-bill was paid. Returning to the dining-room, I happened to take my chair at the window, and while I was eating a devilled kidney I saw in the street the girl whose nods had such an absurd effect on William.
The children of the poor are as thoughtless as their parents, and this Jenny did not sign to the windows in the hope that William might see her, though she could not see him. Her face, which was disgracefully dirty, bore doubt and dismay on it, but whether she brought good news it would not tell. Somehow I had expected her to signal when she saw me, and, though her message could not interest me, I was in the mood in which one is irritated at that not taking place which he is awaiting. Ultimately she seemed to be making up her mind to go away —
A boy was passing with the evening papers, and I hurried out to get one, rather thoughtlessly, for we have all the papers in the club. Unfortunately I misunderstood the direction the boy had taken; but round the first corner (out of sight of the club windows) I saw the girl Jenny, and so I asked her how William’s wife was.
“Did he send you to me?” she replied, impertinently taking me for a waiter. “My!” she added, after a second scrutiny, “I b’lieve you’re one of them. His missis is a bit better, and I was to tell him as she took all the tapiocar.”
“How could you tell him?” I asked.
“I was to do like this,” she replied, and went through the supping of something out of a plate in dumb show.
“That would not show she ate all the tapioca,” I said.
“But I was to end like this,” she answered, licking an imaginary plate with her tongue. I gave her a shilling (to get rid of her), and returned to the club disgusted.
Later in the evening I had to go to the club library for a book, and while “William was looking in vain for it (I had forgotten the title) I said to him:
“By the way, William, Mr. Myddleton Finch is to tell the committee that he was mistaken in the charge he brought against you, so you will doubtless be restored to the dining-room tomorrow.”
The two members were still in their chairs, probably sleeping lightly; yet he had the effrontery to thank me.
“Don’t thank me,” I said, blushing at the imputation. “Remember your place, William!”
“But Mr. Myddleton Finch knew I swore,” he insisted.
“A gentleman,” I replied, stiffly, “cannot remember for twenty-four hours what a waiter has said to him.”
“No, sir, but” —
To stop him I had to say:
“And, ah, William, your wife is a little better. She has eaten the tapioca — all of it.”
“How can you know, sir?”
“By an accident.”
“Jenny signed to the window?”
“No.”
“Then you saw her, and went out, and” —
“Nonsense!”
“Oh, sir, to do that for me! May God bl—”
“William!”
“Forgive me, sir, but — when I tell my missis, she will say it was thought of your own wife as made you do it.”
He wrung my hand. I dared not withdraw it, lest we should waken the sleepers.
William returned to the dining-room, and I had to show him that, if he did not cease looking gratefully at me, I must change my waiter. I also ordered him to stop telling me nightly how his wife was, but I continued to know, as I could not help seeing the girl Jenny from the window. Twice in a week I learned from this objectionable child that the ailing woman had again eaten all the tapioca. Then I became suspicious of William. I will tell why.
It began with a remark of Captain Upjohn’s. We had been speaking of the inconvenience of not being able to get a hot dish served after 1 A.M., and he said:
“It is because these lazy waiters would strike. If the beggars had a love of their work, they would not rush away from the club the moment one o’clock strikes. That glum fellow who often waits on you takes to his heels the moment he is clear of the club steps. He ran into me the other night at the top of the street, and was off without apologizing.”
“You mean the foot of the street, Upjohn,” I said, for such is the way to Drury Lane.
“No; I mean the top. The man was running west.”
“East.”
“West.”
I smiled, which so annoyed him that he bet me two to one in sovereigns. The bet could have been decided most quickly by asking William a question, but I thought, foolishly doubtless, that it might hurt his feelings, so I watched him leave the club. The possibility of Upjohn’s winning the bet had seemed remote to me. Conceive my surprise, therefore, when William went westward.
Amazed, I pursued him along two streets without realizing that I was doing so. Then curiosity put me into a hansom. We followed William, and it proved to be a three-shilling fare, for running when he was in breath and walking when he was out of it, he took me to West Kensington.
I discharged my cab, and from across the street watched William’s incomprehensible behavior. He had stopped at a dingy row of workmen’s houses, and knocked at the darkened window of one of them. Presently a light showed. So far as I could see, someone pulled up the blind and for ten minutes talked to William. I was uncertain whether they talked, for the window was not opened, and I felt that, had William spoken through the glass loud enough, to be heard inside, I must have heard him too. Yet he nodded and beckoned. I was still bewildered when, by setting off the way he had come, he gave me the opportunity of going home.
Knowing from the talk of the club what the lower o
rders are, could I doubt that this was some discreditable love affair of William’s? His solicitude for his wife had been mere pretence; so far as it was genuine, it meant that he feared she might recover. He probably told her that he was detained nightly in the club till three.
I was miserable next day, and blamed the devilled kidneys for it. Whether William was unfaithful to his wife was nothing to me, but I had two plain reasons for insisting on his going straight home from his club: the one, that, as he had made me lose a bet, I must punish him; the other, that he could wait upon me better if he went to bed betimes.
Yet I did not question him. There was something in his face that — Well, I seemed to see his dying wife in it.
I was so out of sorts that I could eat no dinner. I left the club. Happening to stand for some time at the foot of the street, I chanced to see the girl Jenny coming, and — No; let me tell the truth, though the whole club reads; I was waiting for her.
“How is William’s wife to-day?” I asked.
“She told me to nod three times,” the little slattern replied; “but she looked like nothink but a dead one till she got the brandy.”
“Hush, child!” I said, shocked. “You don’t know how the dead look.”
“Bless yer,” she answered, “don’t I just! Why, I’ve helped to lay ‘em out. I’m going on seven.”
“Is William good to his wife?”
“Course he is. Ain’t she his missis?”
“Why should that make him good to her?” I asked, cynically, out of my knowledge of the poor. But the girl, precocious in many ways, had never had my opportunities of studying the lower classes in the newspapers, fiction, and club talk. She shut one eye, and looking up wonderingly, said:
“Ain’t you green — just!”
“When does William reach home at night?”
“‘Tain’t night; it’s morning. When I wakes up at half dark and half light and hears a door shutting I know as it’s either father going off to his work or Mr. Hicking coming home from his.”
“Who is Mr. Hicking?”
“Him as we’ve been speaking on — William. We calls him mister, ‘cause he’s a toff. Father’s just doing jobs in Covent Garden, but Mr. Hicking, he’s a waiter, and a clean shirt every day. The old woman would like father to be a waiter, but he hain’t got the ‘ristocratic look.”