Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (197 page)

But it was not the cleverness that Anthony envied. That would have been fatal to their friendship. He never could answer satisfactorily when Anthony would question him as to what he was going to be — what he was going to do with all his cleverness. He hadn’t made up his mind, he wasn’t quite sure. Sometimes he thought he would be a poet, at other times a musician or an artist, or go in for politics and be a statesman.

“Which are you going to begin with when you leave school?” demanded Anthony. They had been studying in young Tetteridge’s bed-sitting-room and the lesson was over. Anthony’s eyes were fixed upon a motto over the washstand:

“One thing at a time, and that done well, Is a very good thing, as many can tell.”

Young Tetteridge admitted that the time was approaching when the point would have to be considered.

Anthony was sitting on his hands, swinging his legs. Young Tetteridge was walking up and down; owing to the size of the room being ten by twelve it was a walk with many turns.

“You see,” explained Anthony, “you’re not a gentlefolk.”

Mr. Tetteridge claimed that he was, though personally attaching no importance to the fact. His father had been an Indian official. His mother, had she wished, could have claimed descent from one of the most renowned of Irish kings.

“What I mean,” explained Anthony, “is that you’ve got to work for your living.”

Mr. Tetteridge argued that he could live on very little. He was living just then on twelve shillings a week, picked up one way and another.

“But when you’re married and have children?” suggested Anthony.

Mr. Tetteridge flushed, and his eyes instinctively turned to a small photograph on the mantelpiece. It featured a pretty dolly-faced girl, the daughter of one of the masters at the grammar school.

“You haven’t got any friends, have you?” asked Anthony.

Mr. Tetteridge shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he answered.

“Couldn’t you keep a school?” suggested Anthony, “for little boys and girls whose mothers don’t like them going to the parish school and who ain’t good enough for the Misses Warmington? There’s heaps of new people always coming here. And you’re so clever at teaching.”

Mr. Tetteridge, halting suddenly, stretched out his hand; and Anthony, taking his from underneath him, they shook.

“Thanks awfully,” said Mr. Tetteridge. “Do you know I’d never thought of that.”

“I shouldn’t say anything about it if I was you,” counselled Anthony, “or somebody else might slip in and do it before you were ready.”

“We say, ‘if I were you’; not ‘if I was you,’” Mr. Tetteridge corrected him. “We’ll take the subjunctive mood to-morrow. It’s quite easy to remember.”

Again he stretched out his hand. “It’s awfully good of you,” he said.

“I’d like you not to go away from Millsborough,” answered Anthony.

The period of prosperity following the visit of Wandering Peter had lasted all but two years. It came to an end with the death of his father. It was while working on his new invention that the accident had happened.

He was alone in the workshop one evening after supper; and while hoisting a heavy iron bar the rope had broken and the bar had fallen upon him and crushed his skull. He lingered for a day or two, mostly unconscious. It was a few hours before the end that Anthony, who had been sent upstairs by his mother to see if anything had happened, found his father with his eyes wide open. The man made a sign to him to close the door. The boy did so and then came and stood beside the bed.

“There won’t be anything left, sonny,” his father whispered. “I’ve been a fool. Everything I could get or borrow I put into it. It would have been all right, of course, if I had lived and could have finished it. Your mother doesn’t know, as yet. Break it to her after I’m gone, d’you mind? I haven’t the pluck.”

Anthony promised. There seemed to be more that his father wanted to say. He lay staring at the child with a foolish smile about his loose, weak mouth. Anthony sat on the edge of the bed and waited. He put his hand on the boy’s thigh.

“I wish I could say something to you,” he whispered. “You know what I mean: something that you could treasure up and that would be of help to you. I’ve always wanted to. When you used to ask questions and I was short with you, it was because I couldn’t answer them. I used to lie awake at nights and try to think them out. And then I thought that when I came to die something might happen, that perhaps I’d have a vision or something of that sort — they say that people do, you know — that would make it all plain to me and that I’d be able to tell you. But it hasn’t come. I suppose I ain’t the right sort. It all seems dark to me.”

His mind wandered, and after a few incoherent words he closed his eyes again. He did not regain consciousness.

Anthony broke it to his mother — about everything having been sacrificed to the latest new invention.

“Lord love the man!” she answered. “Did he think I didn’t know? We were just a pair of us. I persuaded myself it was going to pan out all right this time.”

They were standing by the bedside. His mother had been up to the great house and had brought back with her a fine wreath of white flowers. They lay upon the sheet just over his breast. Anthony hardly knew his father; the weak, twitching lips were closed and formed a firm, strong line. Apart from the mouth his face had always been beautiful; though, lined with fret and worry and the fair hair grimy and uncombed, few had ever noticed it. His mother stooped and kissed the high pale brow.

“He is like what I remember him at the beginning,” she said. “You can see that he was a gentleman, every inch of him.”

His mother looked younger standing there beside her dead man. A softness had come into her face.

“You did your best, my dear,” she said, “and I guess I wasn’t much help to you.”

Everybody spoke well of the white, handsome man who lay with closed eyes and folded hands as if saying his prayers. Anthony had no idea that his father had been so universally liked and respected.

“Was father any relation to Mr. Selwyn?” he asked his mother the evening of the funeral.

“Relation!” answered his mother. “Not that I ever heard of. Why, what makes you ask?”

“He called him ‘brother,’” explained Anthony. “Oh, that,” answered his mother. “Oh, that doesn’t mean that he really was his brother. It’s just a way of speaking of the dead.”

CHAPTER V

THEY moved into a yet smaller house in a yet meaner street. His mother had always been clever with her needle. A card in the front window gave notice that Mrs. Strong’nth’arm, dressmaker and milliner, was willing to make up ladies’ own materials and guaranteed both style and fit. Mill hands and miners’ wives and daughters supplied her clientèle. When things were going well orders were sufficient to keep Mrs. Strong’nth’arm’s sewing machine buzzing and clacking from morn till night.

There were periods, of course, when work was slack and bills remained unpaid. But on the whole there was enough to just keep and clothe them. It was the problem of Anthony’s education that troubled them both.

And here again it was the Church that came to their rescue. The pious founder of St. Aldys’ Grammar School had decreed
“
Foundation Scholarships” enabling twelve poor boys belonging to the faith to be educated free, selection being in the hands of the governors. Sir William Coomber happened to be one, the vicar another. Young Tetteridge, overcoming his shyness, canvassed the remainder, taking Anthony with him. There was anxiety, alternation of hope and fear. In the end, victory. Anthony, subjected to preliminary examination, was deemed sufficiently advanced for the third form. Sir William Coomber wrote him a note, the handwriting somewhat shaky, telling him to serve God and honour the Queen and be a blessing to his mother. And if ever there was anything that Sir William could do for him to help him he was to let Sir William know. The vicar shook hands with him and wished him God-speed, adding incidentally that heaven helps those that help themselves. The headmaster received him in his study and was sure they were going to be friends. Young Tetteridge gave a cold collation in his honour, to which the head of the third form, the captain of the second division of the football team and three gentlemen of the upper sixth were invited. The captain of the second division of the football team examined his legs and tested his wind and expressed satisfaction. Jarvis, of the upper sixth, made a speech in his honour, quite a kindly speech, though it did rather suggest God Almighty to a promising black beetle; and Anthony was called upon to reply.

Excess of diffidence had never been his failing. It never was to be. He said he was glad he was going to be in the third form, because he did like Billy Saunders very much indeed. And he was glad that Mr. Williamson thought he’d be all right in time for football, because he thought it a jolly game and wanted to play it awfully, if Mr. Williamson would help him and tell him what to do. And, he thought it awfully kind of Mr. Jarvis and Mr. Horrocks and Mr. Andrews to take notice of a little boy like he was; and he hoped that when he got into the upper sixth he’d be like them. And he was awfully bucked up at being one of the St. Aldys boys, because he thought it must be the finest school in all the world, and it was awfully ripping of Mr. Tetteridge to have got him into it. And then he sat down and everybody said “Bravo!” and banged the table, and Mr. Jarvis said it wasn’t half bad for a young ‘un.

“Did I do all right?” he asked young Tetteridge after the others had gone.

“Splendiferous,” answered young Tetteridge, putting an affectionate arm around him. “You said something about all of them.”

“Yes; I thought they’d like that,” said Anthony..

He discovered that other sentiments than kindliness go to the making of a school. It leaked out that he was a
“
cropped head.” The founder — maybe for hygienic reasons — had stipulated that his twelve free scholars should wear their hair cut close. The custom had fallen into disuse, but the name still clung to them. By the time they had reached the upper division they had come to be tolerated. But the early stages were made hard for them. Anthony was dubbed “Pauper,”

“Charity boy.” On the bench the boys right and left of him would draw away so that they might not touch him. In the playground he was left severely to himself. That he was quick and clever at his lessons and that the masters liked him worked still further to his disadvantage. At first young Saunders stuck up for him, but finding this made him a sharer of Anthony’s unpopularity soon dropped him, throwing the blame upon Anthony.

“You see it isn’t only your having come in on the ‘Foundation,’” he explained one day to Anthony, having beckoned him aside to a quiet corner behind a water-butt. “You ought to have told me your mother was a dressmaker.”

“So is young Harringay’s mother,” argued Anthony.

“Yes; but she keeps a big shop and employs girls to do the sewing,” explained Saunders. “Your mother lives in Snelling’s Row and works with her own hands. You ought to have told me. It wasn’t fair.”

Ever since he could remember there had been cropping up things that Anthony could not understand. In his earlier days he had worried about these matters and had asked questions concerning them. But never had he succeeded in getting a helpful answer. As a consequence he had unconsciously become a philosopher. The wise traveller coming to an unknown country accepts what he finds there and makes the best of it.

“Sorry,” replied Anthony, and left it at that.

One day in the playground a boy pointed at him. He was standing with a little group watching the cricket.

“His mother goes out charing,” the boy shouted.

Anthony stole a glance at the boy without making any sign of resentment. As a matter of fact his mother did occasionally go out charing on days when there was no demand for her needle. He was a lithe, muscular-looking lad some three inches taller than Anthony.

“Ain’t you going to fight him?” suggested a small boy near by with a hopeful grin upon his face.

“Not yet,” answered Anthony, and resumed his interest in the game.

There was an old crony of his uncle’s, an exprize fighter. To this man Anthony made appeal. Mr. Dobb was in a quandary. Moved by Mrs. Newt’s warnings and exhortations, he had lately taken up religion and was now running a small public-house in one of the many mining villages adjoining Millsborough.

“It’s agin ‘the Book,’” he answered. “Fighting’s wrong.
‘
Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also.’ Haven’t tried that, have you?”

“He hasn’t done it,” explained Anthony. “He called my mother a charwoman. They’re always on to me, shouting after me ‘ Pauper’ and ‘Charity boy.’”

“Damn shame,” murmured Mr. Dobb forgetfully.

“There’s something inside me,” explained Anthony, “that makes me want to kill them and never mind what happens to me afterwards. It’s that that I’m afraid of. If I could just give one or two of them a good licking it would stop it.”

Mr. Dobb scratched his head. “Wish you’d come to me a year ago, my lad,” he said, “before your aunt got me to promise to read a chapter of the Bible every night before I went to sleep.” He looked down at Anthony with an approving professional eye. “You’ve got the shoulders, and your neck might have been made for it. Your reach couldn’t be better for your height. And all you need is another inch round your wind. In a couple of months I could have turned you out equal to anything up to six stun seven.”

“But the Bible tells us to fight,” argued Anthony. “Yes, it does,” he persisted in reply to Mr. Dobb’s stare of incredulity. “It was God who told Saul to slay all the Amalekites. It was God who taught David to fight, David says so himself. He helped him to fight Goliath.”

Mrs. Newt, having regard to Mr. Dobb’s age, had advised him to read the New Testament first. He had just completed the Acts.

“Are you quite sure?” demanded Mr. Dobb. Anthony found chapter and verse and read them to him.

“Well, this beats me into a cocked hat,” was Mr. Dobb’s comment. “Seems to me to be a case of paying your money and taking your choice.” Mr. Dobb’s scruples being thus laid at rest, he threw himself into the training of Anthony with the enthusiasm of an artist. Anthony promised not to fight till Mr. Dobb gave his consent, and for the rest of the term bore his purgatory in silence. On the last day of the vacation Mr. Dobb pronounced him fit; and on the next morning Anthony set off hopeful of an early opportunity to teach his persecutors forbearance. They were interfering with his work. He wanted to be done with them. To his disappointment no chance occurred that day. A few of the customary jibes were hurled at him; they came, unfortunately, from boys too small to be of any use as an example.