New Grub Street (31 page)

One evening he set forth to make a call upon Harold Biffen, whom
he had not seen since the realist called to acknowledge the receipt
of a copy of 'Margaret Home' left at his lodgings when he was out.
Biffen resided in Clipstone Street, a thoroughfare discoverable in
the dim district which lies between Portland Place and Tottenham
Court Road. On knocking at the door of the lodging-house, Reardon
learnt that his friend was at home. He ascended to the third storey
and tapped at a door which allowed rays of lamplight to issue from
great gaps above and below. A sound of voices came from within, and
on entering he perceived that Biffen was engaged with a pupil.

'They didn't tell me you had a visitor,' he said. 'I'll call
again later.'

'No need to go away,' replied Biffen, coming forward to shake
hands. 'Take a book for a few minutes. Mr Baker won't mind.'

It was a very small room, with a ceiling so low that the tall
lodger could only just stand upright with safety; perhaps three
inches intervened between his head and the plaster, which was
cracked, grimy, cobwebby. A small scrap of weedy carpet lay in
front of the fireplace; elsewhere the chinky boards were
unconcealed. The furniture consisted of a round table, which kept
such imperfect balance on its central support that the lamp
entrusted to it looked in a dangerous position, of three small
cane-bottomed chairs, a small wash-hand-stand with sundry rude
appurtenances, and a chair-bedstead which the tenant opened at the
hour of repose and spread with certain primitive trappings at
present kept in a cupboard. There was no bookcase, but a few
hundred battered volumes were arranged some on the floor and some
on a rough chest. The weather was too characteristic of an English
spring to make an empty grate agreeable to the eye, but Biffen held
it an axiom that fires were unseasonable after the first of
May.

The individual referred to as Mr Baker, who sat at the table in
the attitude of a student, was a robust, hard-featured,
black-haired young man of two-or three-and-twenty; judging from his
weather-beaten cheeks and huge hands, as well as from the garb he
wore, one would have presumed that study was not his normal
occupation. There was something of the riverside about him; he
might be a dockman, or even a bargeman. He looked intelligent,
however, and bore himself with much modesty.

'Now do endeavour to write in shorter sentences,' said Biffen,
who sat down by him and resumed the lesson, Reardon having taken up
a volume. 'This isn't bad—it isn't bad at all, I assure you; but
you have put all you had to say into three appalling periods,
whereas you ought to have made about a dozen.'

'There it is, sir; there it is!' exclaimed the man, smoothing
his wiry hair. 'I can't break it up. The thoughts come in a lump,
if I may say so. To break it up—there's the art of
compersition.'

Reardon could not refrain from a glance at the speaker, and
Biffen, whose manner was very grave and kindly, turned to his
friend with an explanation of the difficulties with which the
student was struggling.

'Mr Baker is preparing for the examination of the outdoor
Customs Department. One of the subjects is English composition, and
really, you know, that isn't quite such a simple matter as some
people think.'

Baker beamed upon the visitor with a homely, good-natured
smile.

'I can make headway with the other things, sir,' he said,
striking the table lightly with his clenched fist. 'There's
handwriting, there's orthography, there's arithmetic; I'm not
afraid of one of 'em, as Mr Biffen 'll tell you, sir. But when it
comes to compersition, that brings out the sweat on my forehead, I
do assure you.

'You're not the only man in that case, Mr Baker,' replied
Reardon.

'It's thought a tough job in general, is it, sir?'

'It is indeed.'

'Two hundred marks for compersition,' continued the man. 'Now
how many would they have given me for this bit of a try, Mr
Biffen?'

'Well, well; I can't exactly say. But you improve; you improve,
decidedly. Peg away for another week or two.'

'Oh, don't fear me, sir! I'm not easily beaten when I've set my
mind on a thing, and I'll break up the compersition yet, see if I
don't!'

Again his fist descended upon the table in a way that reminded
one of the steam-hammer cracking a nut.

The lesson proceeded for about ten minutes, Reardon, under
pretence of reading, following it with as much amusement as
anything could excite in him nowadays. At length Mr Baker stood up,
collected his papers and books, and seemed about to depart; but,
after certain uneasy movements and glances, he said to Biffen in a
subdued voice:

'Perhaps I might speak to you outside the door a minute,
sir?'

He and the teacher went out, the door closed, and Reardon heard
sounds of muffled conversation. In a minute or two a heavy footstep
descended the stairs, and Biffen re-entered the room.

'Now that's a good, honest fellow,' he said, in an amused tone.
'It's my pay-night, but he didn't like to fork out money before
you. A very unusual delicacy in a man of that standing. He pays me
sixpence for an hour's lesson; that brings me two shillings a week.
I sometimes feel a little ashamed to take his money, but then the
fact is he's a good deal better off than I am.'

'Will he get a place in the Customs, do you think?'

'Oh, I've no doubt of it. If it seemed unlikely, I should have
told him so before this. To be sure, that's a point I have often to
consider, and once or twice my delicacy has asserted itself at the
expense of my pocket. There was a poor consumptive lad came to me
not long ago and wanted Latin lessons; talked about going in for
the London Matric., on his way to the pulpit. I couldn't stand it.
After a lesson or two I told him his cough was too bad, and he had
no right to study until he got into better health; that was better,
I think, than saying plainly he had no chance on earth. But the
food I bought with his money was choking me. Oh yes, Baker will
make his way right enough. A good, modest fellow.

You noticed how respectfully he spoke to me? It doesn't make any
difference to him that I live in a garret like this; I'm a man of
education, and he can separate this fact from my surroundings.'

'Biffen, why don't you get some decent position? Surely you
might.'

'What position? No school would take me; I have neither
credentials nor conventional clothing. For the same reason I
couldn't get a private tutorship in a rich family. No, no; it's all
right. I keep myself alive, and I get on with my work.—By-the-bye,
I've decided to write a book called "Mr Bailey, Grocer."'

'What's the idea?'

'An objectionable word, that. Better say: "What's the reality?"
Well, Mr Bailey is a grocer in a little street by here. I have
dealt with him for a long time, and as he's a talkative fellow I've
come to know a good deal about him and his history. He's fond of
talking about the struggle he had in his first year of business. He
had no money of his own, but he married a woman who had saved
forty-five pounds out of a cat's-meat business. You should see that
woman! A big, coarse, squinting creature; at the time of the
marriage she was a widow and forty-two years old. Now I'm going to
tell the true story of Mr Bailey's marriage and of his progress as
a grocer. It'll be a great book—a great book!'

He walked up and down the room, fervid with his conception.

'There'll be nothing bestial in it, you know. The decently
ignoble—as I've so often said. The thing'll take me a year at
least. I shall do it slowly, lovingly. One volume, of course; the
length of the ordinary French novel. There's something fine in the
title, don't you think? "Mr Bailey, Grocer"!'

'I envy you, old fellow,' said Reardon, sighing. 'You have the
right fire in you; you have zeal and energy. Well, what do you
think I have decided to do?'

'I should like to hear.'

Reardon gave an account of his project. The other listened
gravely, seated across a chair with his arms on the back.

'Your wife is in agreement with this?'

'Oh yes.' He could not bring himself to say that Amy had
suggested it. 'She has great hopes that the change will be just
what I need.'

'I should say so too—if you were going to rest. But if you have
to set to work at once it seems to me very doubtful.'

'Never mind. For Heaven's sake don't discourage me! If this
fails I think—upon my soul, I think I shall kill myself.'

'Pooh!' exclaimed Biffen, gently. 'With a wife like yours?'

'Just because of that.'

'No, no; there'll be some way out of it. By-the-bye, I passed
Mrs Reardon this morning, but she didn't see me. It was in
Tottenham Court Road, and Milvain was with her. I felt myself too
seedy in appearance to stop and speak.'

'In Tottenham Court Road?'

That was not the detail of the story which chiefly held
Reardon's attention, yet he did not purposely make a misleading
remark. His mind involuntarily played this trick.

'I only saw them just as they were passing,' pursued Biffen.
'Oh, I knew I had something to tell you! Have you heard that
Whelpdale is going to be married?'

Reardon shook his head in a preoccupied way.

'I had a note from him this morning, telling me. He asked me to
look him up to-night, and he'd let me know all about it. Let's go
together, shall we?'

'I don't feel much in the humour for Whelpdale. I'll walk with
you, and go on home.'

'No, no; come and see him. It'll do you good to talk a
little.—But I must positively eat a mouthful before we go. I'm
afraid you won't care to join?'

He opened his cupboard, and brought out a loaf of bread and a
saucer of dripping, with salt and pepper.

'Better dripping this than I've had for a long time. I get it at
Mr Bailey's—that isn't his real name, of course. He assures me it
comes from a large hotel where his wife's sister is a kitchen-maid,
and that it's perfectly pure; they very often mix flour with it,
you know, and perhaps more obnoxious things that an economical man
doesn't care to reflect upon. Now, with a little pepper and salt,
this bread and dripping is as appetising food as I know. I often
make a dinner of it.'

'I have done the same myself before now. Do you ever buy
pease-pudding?'

'I should think so! I get magnificent pennyworths at a shop in
Cleveland Street, of a very rich quality indeed. Excellent faggots
they have there, too. I'll give you a supper of them some night
before you go.'

Biffen rose to enthusiasm in the contemplation of these
dainties.

He ate his bread and dripping with knife and fork; this always
made the fare seem more substantial.

'Is it very cold out?' he asked, rising from the table. 'Need I
put my overcoat on?'

This overcoat, purchased second-hand three years ago, hung on a
door-nail. Comparative ease of circumstances had restored to the
realist his ordinary indoor garment—a morning coat of the cloth
called diagonal, rather large for him, but in better preservation
than the other articles of his attire.

Reardon judging the overcoat necessary, his friend carefully
brushed it and drew it on with a caution which probably had
reference to starting seams. Then he put into the pocket his pipe,
his pouch, his tobacco-stopper, and his matches, murmuring to
himself a Greek iambic line which had come into his head a propos
of nothing obvious.

'Go out,' he said, 'and then I'll extinguish the lamp. Mind the
second step down, as usual.'

They issued into Clipstone Street, turned northward, crossed
Euston Road, and came into Albany Street, where, in a house of
decent exterior, Mr Whelpdale had his present abode. A girl who
opened the door requested them to walk up to the topmost
storey.

A cheery voice called to them from within the room at which they
knocked. This lodging spoke more distinctly of civilisation than
that inhabited by Biffen; it contained the minimum supply of
furniture needed to give it somewhat the appearance of a study, but
the articles were in good condition. One end of the room was
concealed by a chintz curtain; scrutiny would have discovered
behind the draping the essential equipments of a bedchamber.

Mr Whelpdale sat by the fire, smoking a cigar. He was a
plain-featured but graceful and refined-looking man of thirty, with
wavy chestnut hair and a trimmed beard which became him well. At
present he wore a dressing-gown and was without collar.

'Welcome, gents both!' he cried facetiously. 'Ages since I saw
you, Reardon. I've been reading your new book. Uncommonly good
things in it here and there—uncommonly good.'

Whelpdale had the weakness of being unable to tell a
disagreeable truth, and a tendency to flattery which had always
made Reardon rather uncomfortable in his society. Though there was
no need whatever of his mentioning 'Margaret Home,' he preferred to
frame smooth fictions rather than keep a silence which might be
construed as unfavourable criticism.

'In the last volume,' he went on, 'I think there are one or two
things as good as you ever did; I do indeed.'

Reardon made no acknowledgment of these remarks. They irritated
him, for he knew their insincerity. Biffen, understanding his
friend's silence, struck in on another subject.

'Who is this lady of whom you write to me?'

'Ah, quite a story! I'm going to be married, Reardon. A serious
marriage. Light your pipes, and I'll tell you all about it.
Startled you, I suppose, Biffen? Unlikely news, eh? Some people
would call it a rash step, I dare say. We shall just take another
room in this house, that's all. I think I can count upon an income
of a couple of guineas a week, and I have plans without end that
are pretty sure to bring in coin.'

Reardon did not care to smoke, but Biffen lit his pipe and
waited with grave interest for the romantic narrative. Whenever he
heard of a poor man's persuading a woman to share his poverty he
was eager of details; perchance he himself might yet have that
heavenly good fortune.