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Paul Kelver
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Touching recount of a little boy growing up and his memories of his parents, by the man he grew up to be. The story is supposed to be his own, according to a comment before the book, and since the era was Victorian, the confusions of the little boy provide much opportunity for the author for humour, as do the situations such as the couple having to spring apart every time the door opened, and the boy's aunt coughing, singing and dropping spoons, apart from entering rooms backwards and closing doors noisily before turning.
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"“Tell me,” I say — for at such times all my stock of common sense is not sufficient to convince me that the old House is but clay. From its walls so full of voices, from its floors so thick with footsteps, surely it has learned to live; as a violin, long played on, comes to learn at last a music of its own. “Tell me, I was but a child to whom life speaks in a strange tongue, was there any truth in the story?”
"“Truth!” snaps out the old House; “just truth enough to plant a lie upon; and Lord knows not much ground is needed for that weed. I saw what I saw, and I know what I know. Your mother had a good man, and your father a true wife, but it was the old story: a man’s way is not a woman’s way, and a woman’s way is not a man’s way, so there lives ever doubt between them.”
"“But they came together in the end,” I say, remembering.
"“Aye, in the end,” answers the House. “That is when you begin to understand, you men and women, when you come to the end.”"
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"That night, when my mother came to kiss me good-night, I turned my face to the wall and pretended to be asleep, for children as well as grown-ups have their foolish moods; but when I felt the soft curls brush my cheek, my pride gave way, and clasping my arms about her neck, and drawing her face still closer down to mine; I voiced the question that all the evening had been knocking at my heart: “I suppose you couldn’t send me back now, could you? You see, you’ve had me so long.”
"“Send you back?”
"“Yes. I’d be too big for the stork to carry now, wouldn’t I?”"
"“I did not know you thought about such things,” she said; “we must be more together, you and I, Paul, and you shall tell me all you think, because nurse does not quite understand you. It is true what she said about the trouble; it came just at that time. But I could not have done without you. I was very unhappy, and you were sent to comfort me and help me to bear it.” I liked this explanation better."
"From that day my mother waxes in my memory; Mrs. Fursey, of the many promontories, waning. There were sunny mornings in the neglected garden, where the leaves played round us while we worked and read; twilight evenings in the window seat where, half hidden by the dark red curtains, we would talk in whispers, why I know not, of good men and noble women, ogres, fairies, saints and demons; they were pleasant days.
"Possibly our curriculum lacked method; maybe it was too varied and extensive for my age, in consequence of which chronology became confused within my brain, and fact and fiction more confounded than has usually been considered permissible, even in history. I saw Aphrodite, ready armed and risen from the sea, move with stately grace to meet King Canute, who, throned upon the sand, bade her come no further lest she should wet his feet. In forest glade I saw King Rufus fall from a poisoned arrow shot by Robin Hood; but thanks to sweet Queen Eleanor, who sucked the poison from his wound, I knew he lived. Oliver Cromwell, having killed King Charles, married his widow, and was in turn stabbed by Hamlet. Ulysses, in the Argo, it was fixed upon my mind, had discovered America. Romulus and Remus had slain the wolf and rescued Little Red Riding Hood. Good King Arthur, for letting the cakes burn, had been murdered by his uncle in the Tower of London. Prometheus, bound to the Rock, had been saved by good St. George. Paris had given the apple to William Tell. What matter! the information was there. It needed rearranging, that was all."
"Smaller and poorer the world has grown since then. Now, behind those hills lie naught but smoky towns and dingy villages; but then they screened a land of wonder where princesses dwelt in castles, where the cities were of gold. Now the ocean is but six days’ journey wide, ending at the New York Custom House. Then, had one set one’s sail upon it, one would have travelled far and far, beyond the golden moonlight, beyond the gate of clouds; to the magic land of the blood red shore, t’other side o’ the sun. I never dreamt in those days a world could be so small."
"We scrambled out of the carriage into a great echoing cave that might have been the dragon’s home, where, to my alarm, my mother was immediately swooped down upon by a strange man in grey.
"“Why’s he do that?” I asked of my aunt.
"“Because he’s a fool,” answered my aunt; “they all are.”
"He put my mother down and came towards us. He was a tall, thin man, with eyes one felt one would never be afraid of; and instinctively even then I associated him in my mind with windmills and a lank white horse.
"“Why, how he’s grown,” said the grey man, raising me in his arms until my mother beside me appeared to me in a new light as quite a little person; “and solid too.”"
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"I remember the one egg for breakfast, my mother arguing that my father should have it because he had his business to attend to; my father insisting that my mother should eat it, she having to go out shopping, a compromise being effected by their dividing it between them, each clamouring for the white as the most nourishing. And I know however little the meal looked upon the table when we started I always rose well satisfied. These are small things to speak of, but then you must bear in mind this is a story moving in narrow ways."
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"I wonder am I disloyal setting this down? Maybe to others it shows but a foolish man and woman, and that is far from my intention. I dwell upon such trifles because to me the memory of them is very tender. The virtues of our loved ones we admire, yet after all ’tis but what we expected of them: how could they do otherwise? Their failings we would forget; no one of us is perfect. But over their follies we love to linger, smiling."
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"The East India Dock Road is nowadays a busy, crowded thoroughfare. The jingle of the tram-bell and the rattle of the omnibus and cart mingle continuously with the rain of many feet, beating ceaselessly upon its pavements. But at the time of which I write it was an empty, voiceless way, bounded on the one side by the long, echoing wall of the docks and on the other by occasional small houses isolated amid market gardens, drying grounds and rubbish heaps. Only one thing remains — or did remain last time I passed along it, connecting it with its former self — and that is the one-storeyed brick cottage at the commencement of the bridge, and which was formerly the toll-house. I remember this toll-house so well because it was there that my childhood fell from me, and sad and frightened I saw the world beyond.
"I cannot explain it better. I had been that afternoon to Plaistow on a visit to the family dentist."
"Returning home on this particular day of days, I paused upon the bridge, and watched for awhile the lazy barges manoeuvring their way between the piers. It was one of those hushed summer evenings when the air even of grim cities is full of whispering voices; and as, turning away from the river, I passed through the white toll-gate, I had a sense of leaving myself behind me on the bridge. So vivid was the impression, that I looked back, half expecting to see myself still leaning over the iron parapet, looking down into the sunlit water.
"It sounds foolish, but I leave it standing, wondering if to others a like experience has ever come. The little chap never came back to me. He passed away from me as a man’s body may possibly pass away from him, leaving him only remembrance and regret. For a time I tried to play his games, to dream his dreams, but the substance was wanting. I was only a thin ghost, making believe."
"Then gradually, but very slowly, with the long months and years, came to me the consciousness of a new being, new pulsations, sensories, throbbings, rooted in but differing widely from the old; and little Paul, the Paul of whom I have hitherto spoken, faded from my life."
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"I think I cared for her in a way, yet she never entered into my day-dreams, which means that she existed for me only in the outer world of shadows that lay round about me and was not of my real life.
"Also, I think she was unwise, introducing me to the shop, for children and dogs — one seems unconsciously to bracket them in one’s thoughts — are snobbish little wretches."
"So gradually our meetings became less frequent, though I knew that every afternoon she waited in the quiet Stainsby Road, where dwelt in semi-detached, six-roomed villas the aristocracy of Poplar, and that after awhile, for arriving late at times I have been witness to the sad fact, tears would trace pathetic patterns upon her dust-besprinkled cheeks; and with the advent of the world-illuminating Barbara, to which event I am drawing near, they ceased altogether.
"So began and ended my first romance. One of these days — some quiet summer’s afternoon, when even the air of Pigott Street vibrates with tenderness beneath the whispered sighs of Memory, I shall walk into the little grocer’s shop and boldly ask to see her. So far have I already gone as to trace her, and often have I tried to catch sight of her through the glass door, but hitherto in vain. ... Yet under all the unrealities the clumsy-handed world has built about her, I shall see, I know, the lithesome little maid with fond, admiring eyes. What help they were to me I never knew till I had lost them. How hard to gain such eyes I have learned since."
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"Nor was the contemplation of heaven itself particularly attractive to me, for it was a foolish paradise these foolish voices had fashioned out of their folly. You stood about and sang hymns — for ever! I was assured that my fear of finding the programme monotonous was due only to my state of original sin, that when I got there I should discover I liked it. But I would have given much for the hope of avoiding both their heaven and their hell."
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"I suppose she must have been about fourteen, and I a little over ten, though tall for my age. Later I came to know she had that rare gold hair that holds the light, so that upon her face, which seemed of dainty porcelain, there ever fell a softened radiance as from some shining aureole; those blue eyes where dwell mysteries, shadow veiled. At the time I knew nothing, but that it seemed to me as though the fairy-tales had all come true.
"She smiled, understanding and well pleased with my confusion. Child though I was — little more than child though she was, it flattered her vanity.
"Fair and sweet, you had but that one fault. Would it had been another, less cruel to you yourself."
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"Only on one occasion do I remember his losing it. As a rule, tiresome questions, concerning past participles, square roots, or meridians never reached him, being snapped up in transit by arm-waving lovers of such trifles. The few that by chance trickled so far he took no notice of. They possessed no interest for him, and he never pretended that they did. But one day, taken off his guard, he gave voice quite unconsciously to a correct reply, with the immediate result of finding himself in an exposed position on the front bench. I had never seen Dan out of temper before, but that moment had any of us ventured upon a whispered congratulation we would have had our head punched, I feel confident.
"Old Waterhouse thought that here at last was reformation. “Come, Brian,” he cried, rubbing his long thin hands together with delight, “after all, you’re not such a fool as you pretend.”
"“Never said I was,” muttered Dan to himself, with a backward glance of regret towards his lost seclusion; and before the day was out he had worked his way back to it again.
"As we were going out together, old Waterhouse passed us on the stairs: “Haven’t you any sense of shame, my boy?” he asked sorrowfully, laying his hand kindly on Dan’s shoulder.
"“Yes, sir,” answered Dan, with his frank smile; “plenty. It isn’t yours, that’s all.”"
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"“You see, when I married your mother,” he went on, “I was a rich man. She had everything she wanted.”
"“But you will get it all back,” I cried.
"“I try to think so,” he answered. “I do think so — generally speaking. But there are times — you would not understand — they come to you.”
"“But she is happy,” I persisted; “we are all happy.”
"He shook his head. “I watch her,” he said. “Women suffer more than we do. They live more in the present. I see my hopes, but she — she sees only me, and I have always been a failure. She has lost faith in me.” I could say nothing. I understood but dimly.
"“That is why I want you to be an educated man, Paul,” he continued after a silence. “You can’t think what a help education is to a man. I don’t mean it helps you to get on in the world; I think for that it rather hampers you. But it helps you to bear adversity. To a man with a well-stored mind, life is interesting on a piece of bread and a cup of tea. I know. If it were not for you and your mother I should not trouble.”"
"It seemed to me as though some cruel, unseen thing had crept into the house to stand ever between them, so that they might never look into each other’s loving eyes but only into the eyes of this evil shadow. The idea grew upon me until at times I could almost detect its outline in the air, feel a chillness as it passed me. It trod silently through the pokey rooms, always alert to thrust its grinning face before them. Now beside my mother it would whisper in her ear; and the next moment, stealing across to my father, answer for him with his voice, but strangely different. I used to think I could hear it laughing to itself as it stepped back into enfolding space."
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"As a rule, incorrect opinion found itself unable to exist in Dr. Florret’s presence. As no bird, it is said, can continue its song once looked at by an owl, so all originality grew silent under the cold stare of his disapproving eye. But Dr. “Fighting Hal” was no gentle warbler of thought. Vehement, direct, indifferent, he swept through all polite argument as a strong wind through a murmuring wood, carrying his partisans with him further than they meant to go, and quite unable to turn back; leaving his opponents clinging desperately — upside down, anyhow — to their perches, angry, their feathers much ruffled."
"“I remember,” said my father, “the first masked ball I ever went to when I was a student in Paris. It struck me just as you say, Hal; everybody was so exactly alike. I was glad to get out into the street and see faces.”
"“But I thought they always unmasked at midnight,” said the second Mrs. Teidelmann in her soft, languid tones. “I did not wait,” explained my father.
"“That was a pity,” she replied. “I should have been interested to see what they were like, underneath.”
"“I might have been disappointed,” answered my father. “I agree with Dr. Florret that sometimes the mask is an improvement.”
"Barbara was right. She was a beautiful woman, with a face that would have been singularly winning if one could have avoided the hard cold eyes ever restless behind the half-closed lids."
"She sat next to my father at the corner of the table, her chin resting on her long white hands, her sweet lips parted, and as often as his eyes were turned away from her, her soft low voice would draw them back again. Once she laid her hand on his, laughing the while at some light jest of his, and I saw that he flushed; and following his quick glance, saw that my mother’s eyes were watching also.
"I have spoken of my father only as he then appeared to me, a child — an older chum with many lines about his mobile mouth, the tumbled hair edged round with grey; but looking back with older eyes, I see him a slightly stooping, yet still tall and graceful man, with the face of a poet — the face I mean a poet ought to possess but rarely does, nature apparently abhorring the obvious — with the shy eyes of a boy, and a voice tender as a woman’s. Never the dingiest little drab that entered the kitchen but adored him, speaking always of “the master” in tones of fond proprietorship, for to the most slatternly his “orders” had ever the air of requests for favours."
"“I think it’s all right,” whispered Hasluck to my father in the passage — they were the last to go. “What does she think of it, eh?”
"“I think she’ll be with us,” answered my father.
"“Nothing like food for bringing people together,” said Hasluck. “Good-night.”
"The door closed, but Something had crept into the house. It stood between my father and mother. It followed them silently up the narrow creaking stairs."
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"To do others, as it was his conviction, right or wrong, that they would do him if ever he gave them half a chance, was his notion of “business;” and in most of his transactions he was successful. “I play a game,” he would argue, “where cheating is the rule. Nine out of every ten men round the table are sharpers like myself, and the tenth man is a fool who has no business to be there. We prey upon each other, and the cutest of us is the winner.”"
"In the City, old Hasluck had a bad reputation and deserved it; in Stoke-Newington — then a green suburb, containing many fine old houses, standing in great wooded gardens — he was loved and respected. In his business, he was a man void of all moral sense, without bowels of compassion for any living thing; in retirement, a man with a strong sense of duty and a fine regard for the rights and feelings of others, never happier than when planning to help or give pleasure. In his office, he would have robbed his own mother. At home, he would have spent his last penny to add to her happiness or comfort. I make no attempt to explain. I only know that such men do exist, and that Hasluck was one of them. One avoids difficulties by dismissing them as a product of our curiously complex civilisation — a convenient phrase; let us hope the recording angel may be equally impressed by it."
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"The majority of his friends, his methods being somewhat forensic, would seek to discourage him, but my aunt was a never wearied listener, especially if the case were one involving suspicion of mystery and crime. When, during their very first conversation, he exclaimed: “Now why — why, after keeping away from his wife for nearly eighteen years, never even letting her know whether he was alive or dead, why this sudden resolve to return to her? That is what I want explained to me!” he paused, as was his wont, for sympathetic comment, my aunt, instead of answering as others, with a yawn: “Oh, I’m sure I don’t know. Felt he wanted to see her, I suppose,” replied with prompt intelligence:
"“To murder her — by slow poison.”
"“To murder her! But why?”
"“In order to marry the other woman.”
"“What other woman?”
"“The woman he had just met and fallen in love with. Before that it was immaterial to him what had become of his wife. This woman had said to him: ‘Come back to me a free man or never see my face again.’”
"“Dear me! Now that’s very curious.”
"“Nothing of the sort. Plain common sense.”
"“I mean, it’s curious because, as a matter of fact, his wife did die a little later, and he did marry again.”
"“Told you so,” remarked my aunt.
"In this way every case in the Stillwood annals was reviewed, and light thrown upon it by my aunt’s insight into the hidden springs of human action. Fortunate that the actors remained mere Mr. X. and Lady Y., for into the most innocent seeming behaviour my aunt read ever dark criminal intent.
"“I think you are a little too severe,” Mr. Gadley would now and then plead.
"“We’re all of us miserable sinners,” my aunt would cheerfully affirm; “only we don’t all get the same chances.”"
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"And warmed by appreciation, my aunt’s amiability took root and flourished, though assuming, as all growth developed late is apt to, fantastic shape.
"There came to her the idea, by no means ill-founded, that by flattery one can most readily render oneself agreeable; so conscientiously she set to work to flatter in season and out. I am sure she meant to give pleasure, but the effect produced was that of thinly veiled sarcasm."
"Persons have been known, I believe, whose vanity, not checked in time, has grown into a hopeless disease. But I am inclined to think that a dose of my aunt, about this period, would have cured the most obstinate case."
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"Thoughts do not come to us as we grow older. They are with us all our lives. We learn their language, that is all."
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Chapter IX describes the author, as Paul Kelver the protagonist, meeting Charles Dickens accidentally in a park at twilight, and having a conversation about the career of an author that Paul was looking forward to assume.
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"And indeed this I have learned, that the flag of Womanhood you shall ever find upheld by all true women, flouted only by the false. For a judge in petticoats is ever but a witness in a wig."
"“Now tell us, Mrs. Kelver, for our guidance, we two young bachelors, what must the lover of a young girl be?”
"Always very serious on this subject of love, my mother answered gravely: “She asks for the whole of a man, Hal, not merely for a sixth, nor any other part of him. She is a child asking for a lover to whom she can look up, who will teach her, guide her, protect her. She is a queen demanding homage, and yet he is her king whom it is her joy to serve. She asks to be his partner, his fellow-worker, his playmate, and at the same time she loves to think of him as her child, her big baby she must take care of. Whatever he has to give she has also to respond with. You need not marry six wives, Hal; you will find your six in one.
"“‘As the water to the vessel, woman shapes herself to man;’ an old heathen said that three thousand years ago, and others have repeated him; that is what you mean.”
"“I don’t like that way of putting it,” answered my mother. “I mean that as you say of man, so in every true woman is contained all women. But to know her completely you must love her with all love.”"
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"There is a higher generosity, it is said, that can receive with pleasure as well as bestow favour; but I have never felt it."
"“Don’t leave me to-day, Paul,” whispered my mother to me one morning. So I stayed, and in the evening my mother put her arms around my neck and I lay beside her, my head upon her breast, as I used to when a little boy. And when the morning came I was alone."
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Author begins Book II of Paul Kelver with a description of depressing lodgings for single gentlemen in his era, those he had to use, since solicitor Stillwood, his boss and his father's, had swindled them completely. Fortunately his mother had departed soon after Stillwood died and the swindle was discovered, and he was glad she didn't know about it.
It isn't just the lodgings, it's the whole life of those young gentlemen of limited means that he describes that is at once seen as small and depressing, although it is life of young, educated, white collar employed young single men.
"The hours were long — in fact, we had no office hours; we got away when we could, which was rarely before seven or eight — but my work was interesting. It consisted of buying for unfortunate clients in India or the Colonies anything they might happen to want, from a stage coach to a pot of marmalade; packing it and shipping it across to them. Our “commission” was anything they could be persuaded to pay over and above the value of the article. I was not much interfered with. There was that to be said for Lott & Co., so long as the work was done he was quite content to leave one to one’s own way of doing it. And hastening through the busy streets, bargaining in shop or warehouse, bustling important in and out the swarming docks, I often thanked my stars that I was not as some poor two-pound-a-week clerk chained to a dreary desk.
"The fifteen shillings a week was a tight fit; but that was not my trouble."
"Were it because of its mere material hardships that to this day I think of that period of my life with a shudder, I should not here confess to it. I was alone. I knew not a living soul to whom I dared to speak, who cared to speak to me. For those first twelve months after my mother’s death I lived alone, thought alone, felt alone. In the morning, during the busy day, it was possible to bear; but in the evenings the sense of desolation gripped me like a physical pain. The summer evenings came again, bringing with them the long, lingering light so laden with melancholy. I would walk into the Parks and, sitting there, watch with hungry eyes the men and women, boys and girls, moving all around me, talking, laughing, interested in one another; feeling myself some speechless ghost, seeing but not seen, crying to the living with a voice they heard not. Sometimes a solitary figure would pass by and glance back at me; some lonely creature like myself longing for human sympathy. In the teeming city must have been thousands such — young men and women to whom a friendly ear, a kindly voice, would have been as the water of life. Each imprisoned in his solitary cell of shyness, we looked at one another through the grating with condoling eyes; further than that was forbidden to us. Once, in Kensington Gardens, a woman turned, then slowly retracing her steps, sat down beside me on the bench. Neither of us spoke; had I done so she would have risen and moved away; yet there was understanding between us. To each of us it was some comfort to sit thus for a little while beside the other. Had she poured out her heart to me, she could have told me nothing more than I knew: “I, too, am lonely, friendless; I, too, long for the sound of a voice, the touch of a hand. It is hard for you, it is harder still for me, a girl; shut out from the bright world that laughs around me; denied the right of youth to joy and pleasure; denied the right of womanhood to love and tenderness.”
"The footsteps to and fro grew fewer. She moved to rise. Stirred by an impulse, I stretched out my hand, then seeing the flush upon her face, drew it back hastily. But the next moment, changing her mind, she held hers out to me, and I took it. It was the first clasp of a hand I had felt since six months before I had said good-bye to Hal. She turned and walked quickly away. I stood watching her; she never looked round, and I never saw her again."
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"London, with its million characters, grave and gay; its ten thousand romances, its mysteries, its pathos, and its humour, lay to my hand. It stretched before me, asking only intelligent observation, more or less truthful report. But that I could make a story out of the things I really knew never occurred to me. My tales were of cottage maidens, of bucolic yeomen. My scenes were laid in windmills, among mountains, or in moated granges. I fancy this phase of folly is common to most youthful fictionists."
"I scrupulously followed fashion. Generally speaking, to be a heroine of mine was fatal. However naturally her hair might curl — and curly hair, I believe, is the hall-mark of vitality; whatever other indications of vigorous health she might exhibit in the first chapter, such as “dancing eyes,” “colour that came and went,” “ringing laughter,” “fawn-like agility,” she was tolerably certain, poor girl, to end in an untimely grave."
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"I had noticed also that others, some of them grown men even, making wry faces, when drinking my mother’s claret, and had concluded therefrom that taste for strong liquor was an accomplishment less easily acquired than is generally supposed."
"Recently fashion has changed somewhat, but a quarter of a century ago a genius who did not smoke and drink — and that more than was good for him — would have been dismissed without further evidence as an impostor. About the genius I was hopeful, but at no time positively certain. As regarded the smoking and drinking, so much at least I could make sure of. I set to work methodically, conscientiously. Smoking, experience taught me, was better practised on Saturday nights, Sunday affording me the opportunity of walking off the effects. Patience and determination were eventually crowned with success: I learned to smoke a cigarette to all appearance as though I were enjoying it. Young men of less character might here have rested content, but attainment of the highest has always been with me a motive force. The cigarette conquered, I next proceeded to attack the cigar. My first one I remember well: most men do."
"Once, confusing bottles, I drank some hair oil in mistake for whiskey, and found it decidedly less nauseous. But twice a week I would force myself to swallow a glass of beer, standing over myself insisting on my draining it to the bitter dregs."
"“I’ve always noticed it,” Mrs. Peedles would explain; “it’s always the most deserving, those that try hardest, to whom trouble comes. I’m sure I don’t know why.”
"I was glad on the whole when that bottle of whiskey was finished. A second might have driven me to suicide."
Jerome K. Jerome proceeds to describe various inmates of the lodging house that Paul Kelver lived in, and after two or three, one comes across what suddenly seems like a caricature of Anna Karenina. Which probably was fresh literature when he was young. The chapter begins with pain description and ends up leaving the reader somewhere between chuckling and in danger of side splitting laughter, as the author often does.
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"So far as the stage I found my way in safety. Pausing for a moment and glancing round, my impression was not so much disillusionment concerning all things theatrical as realisation of my worst forebodings. In that one moment all glamour connected with the stage fell from me, nor has it since ever returned to me. From the tawdry decorations of the auditorium to the childish make-belief littered around on the stage, I saw the Theatre a painted thing of shreds and patches — the grown child’s doll’s-house."
"The rehearsal proceeded. In the last act it became necessary for me to kiss the thin lady.
"“I am very sorry,” said the thin lady, “but duty is duty. It has to be done.”
"Again I followed directions. The thin lady was good enough to congratulate me on my performance."
"About one thing, and about one thing, only, had the principals fallen into perfect agreement, and that was that the fishy-eyed young gentleman was out of place in a romantic opera. The tenor would be making impassioned love to the leading lady. Perception would come to both of them that, though they might be occupying geographically the centre of the stage, dramatically they were not. Without a shred of evidence, yet with perfect justice, they would unhesitatingly blame for this the fishy-eyed young man.
"“I wasn’t doing anything,” he would explain meekly. “I was only looking.” It was perfectly true; that was all he was doing.
"“Then don’t look,” would comment the tenor.
"The fishy-eyed young gentleman obediently would turn his face away from them; and in some mysterious manner the situation would thereupon become even yet more hopelessly ridiculous.
"“My scene, I think, sir!” would thunder our chief comedian, a little later on.
"“I am only doing what I was told to do,” answered the fishy-eyed young gentleman; and nobody could say that he was not.
"“Take a circus, and run him as a side-show,” counselled our comedian.
"“I am afraid he would never be any good as a side-show,” replied Mr. Hodgson, who was reading letters."
"The sound of the rapidly-filling house reached us, softened through the thick baize curtain, a dull, continuous droning, as of water pouring into some huge cistern. Suddenly there fell upon our ears a startling crash; the overture had commenced. The stage manager — more suggestive of a sheep-dog than ever, but lacking the calm dignity, the self-possession born of conscious capability distinctive of his prototype; a fussy, argumentative sheep-dog — rushed into the midst of us and worried us into our positions, where the more experienced continued to converse in whispers, the rest of us waiting nervously, trying to remember our words. The chorus master, taking his stand with his back to the proscenium, held his white-gloved hand in readiness. The curtain rushed up, the house, a nightmare of white faces, appearing to run towards us. The chorus-master’s white-gloved hand flung upward. A roar of voices struck upon my ear, but whether my own were of them I could not say; if I were singing at all it was unconsciously, mechanically."
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"Dan had gone to Cambridge; but two years later, in consequence of the death of his father, of a wound contracted in the Indian Mutiny and never cured, had been compelled to bring his college career to an untimely termination.
"“You might not have expected that to grieve me,” said Dan, with a smile, “but, as a matter of fact, it was a severe blow to me. At Cambridge I discovered that I was by temperament a scholar. The reason why at school I took no interest in learning was because learning was, of set purpose, made as uninteresting as possible. Like a Cook’s tourist party through a picture gallery, we were rushed through education; the object being not that we should see and understand, but that we should be able to say that we had done it. At college I chose my own subjects, studied them in my own way. I fed on knowledge, was not stuffed with it like a Strassburg goose.”"
"On the stage he had remained for another eighteen months; had played all roles, from “Romeo” to “Paul Pry,” had helped to paint the scenery, had assisted in the bill-posting. The latter, so he told me, he had found one of the most difficult of accomplishments, the paste-laden poster having an innate tendency to recoil upon the amateur’s own head, and to stick there."
"“You’ve been somewhat of a rolling stone hitherto,” I commented.
"He laughed. “From the stone’s point of view,” he answered, “I never could see the advantage of being smothered in moss. I should always prefer remaining the stone, unhidden, able to move and see about me. But now, to speak of other matters, what are your plans for the immediate future? Your opera, thanks to the gentlemen, the gods have dubbed ‘Goggles,’ will, I fancy, run through the winter. Are you getting any salary?”
"“Thirty shillings a week,” I explained to him, “with full salary for matinees.”
"“Say two pounds,” he replied. “With my three we could set up an establishment of our own. I have an idea that is original. Shall we work it out together?”
"I assured him with fervour that nothing would please me better."
"At the risk of offending an adorable but somewhat touchy sex, convinced that man, left to himself, is capable of little more than putting himself to bed, and that only in a rough-and-ready fashion, truth compels me to record the fact that without female assistance or supervision of any kind we passed through those two years, and yet exist to tell the tale. Dan had not idly boasted. Better plain cooking I never want to taste; so good a cup of coffee, omelette, or devilled kidney I rarely have tasted. Had he always confined his efforts within the boundaries of his abilities, there would be little to record beyond continuous and monotonous success. But stirred into dangerous ambition at the call of an occasional tea or supper party, lured out of his depths by the example of old Deleglise, our landlord — a man who for twenty years had made cooking his hobby — Dan would at intervals venture upon experiment. Pastry, it became evident, was a thing he should never have touched: his hand was heavy and his temperament too serious. There was a thing called lemon sponge, necessitating much beating of eggs. In the cookery-book — a remarkably fat volume, luscious with illustrations of highly-coloured food — it appeared an airy and graceful structure of dazzling whiteness. Served as Dan sent it to table, it suggested rather in form and colour a miniature earthquake. Spongy it undoubtedly was. One forced it apart with the assistance of one’s spoon and fork; it yielded with a gentle tearing sound. Another favourite dainty of his was manna-cake. Concerning it I would merely remark that if it in any way resembled anything the Children of Israel were compelled to eat, then there is explanation for that fretfulness and discontent for which they have been, perhaps, unjustly blamed — some excuse even for their backward-flung desires in the direction of the Egyptian fleshpots. Moses himself may have been blessed with exceptional digestion. It was substantial, one must say that for it. One slice of it — solid, firm, crusty on the outside, towards the centre marshy — satisfied most people to a sense of repletion. For supper parties Dan would essay trifles — by no means open to the criticism of being light as air — souffle’s that guests, in spite of my admonishing kicks, would persist in alluding to as pudding; and in winter-time, pancakes. Later, as regards these latter, he acquired some skill; but at first the difficulty was the tossing. I think myself a safer plan would have been to turn them by the aid of a knife and fork; it is less showy, but more sure. At least, you avoid all danger of catching the half-baked thing upon your head instead of in the pan, of dropping it into the fire, or among the cinders. But “Thorough” was always Dan’s motto; and after all, small particles of coal or a few hairs can always be detected by the careful feeder, and removed."
"Concerning our house-maid, I can speak in terms of unqualified praise. There are, alas, fussy house-maids — who has not known and suffered them? — who overdo the thing, have no repose, no instinct telling them when to ease up and let the place alone. ... Compromise is true statesmanship. There will come a day when you will be glad of an excuse for not doing something else that you ought to be doing. Then you can take up the mats and feel quite industrious, contemplating the amount of work that really must be done — some time or another."
"The opera, as Dan had predicted, ran far into the following year. When it was done with, another — in which “Goggles” appeared as one of the principals — took its place, and was even more successful. After the experience of Nelson Square, my present salary of thirty-five shillings, occasionally forty shillings, a week seemed to me princely. There floated before my eyes the possibility of my becoming a great opera singer. On six hundred pounds a week, I felt I could be content. But the O’Kelly set himself to dispel this dream.
"“Ye’d be making a mistake, me boy,” explained the O’Kelly. “Ye’d be just wasting ye’re time. I wouldn’t tell ye so if I weren’t convinced of it.”"
"I dreamt of becoming a second Kean, of taking Macready’s place. It need not interfere with my literary ambition. I could combine the two: fill Drury Lane in the evening, turn out epoch-making novels in the morning, write my own plays.
"Every day I studied in the reading-room of the British Museum. Wearying of success in Art, I might eventually go into Parliament: a Prime Minister with a thorough knowledge of history: why not? With Ollendorf for guide, I continued French and German. It might be the diplomatic service that would appeal to me in my old age. An ambassadorship! It would be a pleasant termination to a brilliant career."
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"There was excuse for my optimistic mood about this period. All things were going well with me. A story of mine had been accepted."
"No writer worth his salt was ever satisfied with anything he ever wrote, so I have been told, and so I try to believe. Evidently I am not worth my salt. ... But of this, my first-born, the harbinger of all my hopes, I am no judge. Touching the yellowing, badly-printed pages, I feel again the deep thrill of joy with which I first unfolded them and read. Again I am a youngster, and life opens out before me — inmeasurable, no goal too high. This child of my brain, my work: it shall spread my name throughout the world. It shall be a household world in lands that I shall never see. Friends whose voices I shall never hear will speak of me. I shall die, but it shall live, yield fresh seed, bear fruit I know not of. Generations yet unborn shall read it and remember me. My thoughts, my words, my spirit: in it I shall live again; it shall keep my memory green.
"The long, long thoughts of boyhood! We elders smile at them. The little world spins round; the little voices of an hour sink hushed. The crawling generations come and go. The solar system drops from space. The eternal mechanism reforms and shapes itself anew. Time, turning, ploughs another furrow. So, growing sleepy, we murmur with a yawn. Is it that we see clearer, or that our eyes are growing dim? Let the young men see their visions, dream their dreams, hug to themselves their hopes of enduring fame; so shall they serve the world better."
Paul went to meet his landlord and met his daughter.
"Deleglise himself was a handsome old fellow, then a man of about fifty-five. His massive, mobile face, illuminated by bright, restless eyes, was crowned with a lion-like mane of iron-grey hair. Till a few years ago he had been a painter of considerable note. But in questions of art his temper was short. Pre-Raphaelism had gone out of fashion for the time being; the tendency of the new age was towards impressionism, and in disgust old Deleglise had broken his palette across his knee, and swore never to paint again. Artistic work of some sort being necessary to his temperament, he contented himself now with engraving. At the moment he was engaged upon the reproduction of Memlinc’s Shrine of St. Ursula, with photographs of which he had just returned from Bruges."
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Paul met Barbara Hasluck, engaged to Count Huescar, obliging Hasluck in his social climbing..
"“Foreign Counts,” he grumbled to me laughingly, one day, “well, I hope they’re worth more in Society than they are in the City. A hundred guineas is their price there, and they’re not worth that. Who was that American girl that married a Russian Prince only last week? A million dollars was all she gave for him, and she a wholesale boot-maker’s daughter into the bargain! Our girls are not half as smart.”"
"But that was before he had seen his future son-in-law. After, he was content enough, and up to the day of the wedding, childishly elated. Under the Count’s tuition he studied with reverential awe the Huescar history. Princes, statesmen, warriors, glittered, golden apples, from the spreading branches of its genealogical tree. Why not again! its attenuated blue sap strengthened with the rich, red blood, brewed by toil and effort in the grim laboratories of the under world. In imagination, old Hasluck saw himself the grandfather of Chancellors, the great-grandfather of Kings.
"“I have laid the foundation, you shall raise the edifice,” so he told her one evening I was spending with them, caressing her golden hair with his blunt, fat fingers. “I am glad you were not a boy. A boy, in all probability, would have squandered the money, let the name sink back again into the gutter. And even had he been the other sort, he could only have been another business man, keeping where I had left him. You will call your first boy Hasluck, won’t you? It must always be the first-born’s name. It shall be famous in the world yet, and for something else than mere money.”
"I began to understand the influences that had gone towards the making — or marring — of Barbara’s character. I had never guessed he had cared for anything beyond money and the making of money.
"It was, of course, a wedding as ostentatious as possible. Old Hasluck knew how to advertise, and spared neither expense nor labour, with the result that it was the event of the season, at least according to the Society papers. Mrs. Hasluck was the type of woman to have escaped observation, even had the wedding been her own; that she was present at her daughter’s, “becomingly dressed in grey veiling spotted white, with an encrustation of mousseline de soie,” I learnt the next day from the Morning Post."
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From "The Song of the Wandering Aengus" by William Butler Yeats:
"I will find out where she has gone
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun."
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"“But is it worth it all?” I suggested. “Surely you have enough?”
"“It means power, Paul.” He slapped his trousers pocket, making the handful of gold and silver he always carried there jingle musically. “It is this that rules the world. My children shall be big pots, hobnob with kings and princes, slap them on the back and call them by their Christian names, be kings themselves — why not? It’s happened before. My children, the children of old Noel Hasluck, son of a Whitechapel butcher! Here’s my pedigree!” Again be slapped his tuneful pocket. “It’s an older one than theirs! It’s coming into its own at last! It’s money — we men of money — that are the true kings now. It’s our family that rules the world — the great money family; I mean to be its head.”"
"“You will be visiting them,” I suggested, “and they will be coming to stop with you.”
"He shook his head. “They won’t want me, and it isn’t my game to hamper them. I never mix out of my class. I’ve always had sense enough for that.”"
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"“But are you not sinning your mercies, you fellows?” Dan replied. “There is young Kelver here. At school it was always his trouble that he could give us a good time and make us laugh, which nobody else in the whole school could do. His ambition was to kick a ball as well as a hundred other fellows could kick it. He could tell us a good story now if he would only write what the Almighty intended him to write, instead of gloomy rigmaroles about suffering Princesses in Welsh caves. I don’t say it’s bad, but a hundred others could write the same sort of thing better.”"
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"So there came a morning when we said good-bye. Before Dan returned from the office I should be gone. They had been pleasant months that we had spent together in these pretty rooms. Though my life was calling to me full of hope, I felt the pain of leaving them. Two years is a long period in a young man’s life, when the sap is running swiftly. My affections had already taken root there. The green leaves in summer, in winter the bare branches of the square, the sparrows that chirped about the window-sills, the quiet peace of the great house, Dan, kindly old Deleglise: around them my fibres clung, closer than I had known. The Lady of the train: she managed it now less clumsily. Her hands and feet had grown smaller, her elbows rounder. I found myself smiling as I thought of her — one always did smile when one thought of Norah, everybody did; — of her tomboy ways, her ringing laugh — there were those who termed it noisy; her irrepressible frankness — there were times when it was inconvenient. Would she ever become lady-like, sedate, proper? One doubted it."
"I put a few things into a small bag and walked thirty miles that night into Belfast. Arrived in London, I took a lodging in Deptford, where I was least likely to come in contact with any face I had ever seen before. I maintained myself by giving singing lessons at sixpence the half-hour, evening lessons in French and German (the Lord forgive me!) to ambitious shop-boys at eighteen pence a week, making up tradesmen’s books. A few articles of jewellery I had retained enabled me to tide over bad periods. For some four months I existed there, never going outside the neighbourhood. Occasionally, wandering listlessly about the streets, some object, some vista, would strike me by reason of its familiarity. Then I would turn and hasten back into my grave of dim, weltering streets."
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"She looked at her watch. “I must be off.” She turned again. “There is something I was forgetting. B—” — she mentioned the name of the dramatist whose play Vane had stolen—”has been looking for you for the last three months. If you hadn’t been an idiot you might have saved yourself a good deal of trouble. He is quite certain it was Vane stole the manuscript. He asked the nurse to bring it to him an hour after Vane had left the house, and it couldn’t be found. Besides, the man’s character is well known. And so is yours. I won’t tell it you,” she laughed; “anyhow, it isn’t that of a knave.”
"She made a step towards me, then changed her mind. “No,” she said, “I shan’t shake hands with you till you have paid the last penny that you owe. Then I shall know that you are a man.”
"She did not look back. I watched her, till the sunlight, streaming in my eyes, raised a golden mist between us.
"Then I went to my work.
"It took me three years to win that handshake. For the first six months I remained in Deptford. There was excellent material to be found there for humorous articles, essays, stories; likewise for stories tragic and pathetic. But I owed a hundred and fifty pounds — a little over two hundred it reached to, I found, when I came to add up the actual figures. So I paid strict attention to business, left the tears to be garnered by others — better fitted maybe for the task; kept to my own patch, reaped and took to market only the laughter.
"At the beginning I sent each manuscript to Norah; she had it copied out, debited me with the cost received payment, and sent me the balance. At first my earnings were small; but Norah was an excellent agent; rapidly they increased. Dan grew quite cross with her, wrote in pained surprise at her greed. The “matter” was fair, but in no way remarkable. Any friend of hers, of course, he was anxious to assist; but business was business. In justice to his proprietors, he could not and would not pay more than the market value. Miss Deleglise, replying curtly in the third person, found herself in perfect accord with Mr. Brian as to business being business. If Mr. Brian could not afford to pay her price for material so excellent, other editors with whom Miss Deleglise was equally well acquainted could and would. Answer by return would greatly oblige, pending which the manuscript then in her hands she retained. Mr. Brian, understanding he had found his match, grumbled but paid. Whether he had any suspicion who “Jack Homer” might be, he never confessed; but he would have played the game, pulled his end of the rope, in either case. Nor was he allowed to decide the question for himself. Competition was introduced into the argument. Of purpose a certain proportion of my work my agent sent elsewhere. “Jack Homer” grew to be a commodity in demand. For, seated at my rickety table, I laughed as I wrote, the fourth wall of the dismal room fading before my eyes revealing vistas beyond."
"To my literary labours I found it necessary to add journalism."
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"“But, under the circumstances, would it not be better,” I suggested, “for her to obtain a divorce? Then you and the Signora could marry and there would be an end to the whole trouble.”
"“From a strictly worldly point of view,” replied the O’Kelly, “it certainly would be; but Mrs. O’Kelly” — his voice took to itself unconsciously a tone of reverence—”is not an ordinary woman. You can have no conception, my dear Kelver, of her goodness. I had a letter from her only two months ago, a few weeks after the — the last occurrence. Not one word of reproach, only that if I trespassed against her even unto seven times seven she would still consider it her duty to forgive me; that the ‘home’ would always be there for me to return to and repent.”
"A tear stood in the O’Kelly’s eye. “A beautiful nature,” he commented. “There are not many women like her.”
"“Not one in a million!” added the Signora, with enthusiasm.
"“Well, to me it seems like pure obstinacy,” I said.
"The O’Kelly spoke quite angrily. “Don’t ye say a word against her! I won’t listen to it. Ye don’t understand her. She never will despair of reforming me.”"
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"“Don’t leave him behind you,” he said; “the little boy Paul — Paul the dreamer.”
"I laughed. “Oh, he! He was only in my way.”
"“Yes, here,” answered Dan. “This is not his world. He is of no use to you here; won’t help you to bread and cheese — no, nor kisses either. But keep him near you. Later, you will find, perhaps, that all along he has been the real Paul — the living, growing Paul; the other — the active, worldly, pushful Paul, only the stuff that dreams are made of, his fretful life a troubled night rounded by a sleep.”
"“I have been driving him away,” I said. “He is so — so impracticable.”
"Dan shook his head gravely. “It is not his world,” he repeated. “We must eat, drink — be husbands, fathers. He does not understand. Here he is the child. Take care of him.”"
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"Slowly, surely, steadily I climbed, putting aside all dreams, paying strict attention to business. Often my other self, little Paul of the sad eyes, would seek to lure me from my work. But for my vehement determination never to rest for a moment till I had purchased back my honesty, my desire — growing day by day, till it became almost a physical hunger — to feel again the pressure of Norah’s strong white hand in mine, he might possibly have succeeded. Heaven only knows what then he might have made of me: politician, minor poet, more or less able editor, hampered by convictions — something most surely of but little service to myself. Now and again, with a week to spare — my humour making holiday, nothing to be done but await patiently its return — I would write stories for my own pleasure. They made no mark; but success in purposeful work is of slower growth. Had I persisted — but there was money to be earned. And by the time my debts were paid, I had established a reputation.
"“Madness!” argued practical friends. “You would be throwing away a certain fortune for, at the best, a doubtful competence. The one you know you can do, the other — it would be beginning your career all over again.”
"“You would find it almost impossible now,” explained those who spoke, I knew, words of wisdom, of experience. “The world would never listen to you. Once a humourist always a humourist. As well might a comic actor insist upon playing Hamlet. It might be the best Hamlet ever seen upon the stage; the audience would only laugh — or stop away.”"
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"The final dress rehearsal over, I took my leave of all concerned. The next morning I would pack a knapsack and start upon a walking tour through Holland. The English papers would not reach me. No human being should know my address. In a month or so I would return, the piece would have disappeared — would be forgotten. With courage, I might be able to forget it myself."
"But for a chance meeting with Wellbourne, Deleglise’s amateur caretaker of Gower Street fame, I should have delayed yet longer my return. It was in one of the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee."
"“What was the trouble?” I enquired.
"“Haven’t you heard?” he replied. “Tom died five weeks ago, quite suddenly, of syncope. We had none of us any idea.”
"So Norah was alone in the world. I rose to my feet. The slowly moving speck had grown into a thin, dark streak; minute by minute it took shape and form.
"“By the way, I have to congratulate you,” said Wellbourne. “Your opera looked like being a big thing when I left London. You didn’t sell outright, I hope?”"
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"We spoke of him, of his work, which since had come to be appraised at truer value, for it was out of fashion while he lived.
"“Was he a disappointed man, do you think?” I asked.
"“No,” answered Norah. “I am sure not. He was too fond of his work.”
"“But he dreamt of becoming a second Millet. He confessed it to me once. And he died an engraver.”
"“But they were good engravings,” smiled Norah.
"“I remember a favourite saying of his,” continued Norah, after a pause; “I do not know whether it was original or not. ‘The stars guide us. They are not our goal.’”
"“Ah, yes, we aim at the moon and — hit the currant bush.”
"“It is necessary always to allow for deflection,” laughed Norah. “Apparently it takes a would-be poet to write a successful comic opera.”"
"I looked into her sweet grey eyes.
"“You always help me,” I said.
"“Do I?” she answered. “I am so glad.”
"She put her firm white hand in mine."
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September 26, 2020 - October 06, 2020.
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