Part 1 (1/2)
Somehow Good.
by William de Morgan.
CHAPTER I
A RETURNED TRAVELLER. NEMESIS IN LIVERMORE'S RENTS, 1808. EXTRAVAGANCE, AND NO CASH. A p.a.w.nED WATCH, AND A RESIDUUM OF FOURPENCE
An exceptionally well-built man in a blue serge suit walked into a bank in the City, and, handing his card across the counter, asked if credit had been wired for him from New York. The clerk to whom he spoke would inquire.
As he leaned on the counter, waiting for the reply, his appearance was that of a man just off a sea voyage, wearing a suit of clothes well knocked about in a short time, but quite untainted by London dirt. His get-up conveyed no information about his social position or means. His garments had been made for him; that was all that could be said. That is something to know. But it leaves the question open whether their wearer is really only a person in decent circ.u.mstances--_one_ decent circ.u.mstance, at any rate--or a Duke.
The trustworthy young gentleman in spectacles who came back from an authority in the bush to tell him that no credit had been wired so far, did not seem to find any difficulty in affecting confidence that the ultimate advent of this wire was an intrinsic certainty, like the post. Scarcely, perhaps, the respectable confidence he would have shown to a real silk hat--for the applicant's was mere soft felt, though it looked new, for that matter--and a real clean s.h.i.+rt, one inclusive of its own collar and cuffs. Our friend's answered this description; but then, it was blue. However, the confidence would have wavered under an independent collar and wristbands. Cohesiveness in such a garment means that its wearer may be an original genius: compositeness may mean that he has to economize, like us.
”Did you expect it so early as this?” says the trustworthy young gentleman, smiling sweetly through his spectacles. ”It isn't ten o'clock yet.” But he only says this to show his confidence, don't you see? Because his remark is in its nature meaningless, as there is no time of day telegrams have a penchant for. No doubt there is a time--perhaps even times and half-a-time--when you cannot send them.
But there is no time when they may not arrive. Except the smallest hours of the morning, which are too small to count.
”I don't think I did,” replies the applicant. ”I don't think I thought about it. I wired them yesterday from Liverpool, when I left the boat, say four o'clock.”
”Ah, then of course it's a little too early. It may not come till late in the afternoon. It depends on the load on the wires. Could you call in again--well, a little before our closing time?”
”All right.” The speaker took out a little purse or pocket-book, and looked in it. ”I thought so,” said he; ”that was my last card.” But the clerk had left it in the inner sanctum. He would get it, and disappeared to do so. When he came back with it, however, he found its owner had gone, saying never mind, it didn't matter.
”Chap seems in a great hurry!” said he to his neighbour clerk. ”What's he got that great big ring on his thumb for?” And the other replying: ”Don't you know 'em--rheumatic rings?” he added: ”Doesn't look a rheumatic customer, anyhow!” And then both of them pinned up cheques, and made double entries.
The chap didn't seem in a great hurry as he sauntered away along Cornhill, looking in at the shop-windows. He gave the idea of a chap with a fine June day before him in London, with a plethora of choices of what to do and where to go. Also of being keenly interested in everything, like a chap that had not been in London for a long time.
After watching the action of a noiseless new petroleum engine longer than its monotonous idea of life seemed to warrant, he told a hansom to take him to the Tower, for which service he paid a careless two s.h.i.+llings. The driver showed discipline, and concealed his emotions.
_He_ wasn't going to let out that it was a double fare, and impair a fountain of wealth for other charioteers to come. Not he!
The fare enjoyed himself evidently at the Tower. He saw everything he could be admitted to--the Beauchamp Tower for sixpence, and the Jewel-house for sixpence. And he gave uncalled-for gratuities. When he had thoroughly enjoyed all the dungeons and all the torture-relics, and all the memories of Harrison Ainsworth's romance, read in youth and never forgotten, he told another hansom to drive him across the Tower Bridge, and not go too fast.
As he crossed the Bridge he looked at his watch. It was half-past twelve. He would have time to get back before half-past one to a restaurant he had made a mental note of near the Bank, and still to allow the cabby to drive on a bit through the transpontine and interesting regions of Rotherhithe and Cherry Garden Pier. It was so unlike anything he had been seeing lately. None the worse for the latter, in some respects. So, at least, thought the fare.
For he had the good, or ill, fortune to strike on a rich vein of so-called life in a London slum. Shrieks of fury, terror, pain were coming out of an archway that led, said an inscription, into Livermore's Rents, 1808. Public opinion, outside those Rents, ascribed them to the fact that Salter had been drinking. He was on to that pore wife of his again, like last week. Half killed her, he did, then! But he was a bad man to deal with, and public opinion wouldn't go down that court if I was you.
”But you're not, you see!” said the fare, who had sought this information. ”You stop here, my lad, till I come back.” This to the cabman, who sees him, not without misgivings about a source of income, plunge into the filthy and degraded throng that is filling the court, and elbow his way to the scene of excitement.
”_He's_ all right!” said that cabby. ”I'll put a tenner on him, any Sunday morning”--a figure of speech we cannot explain.
From his elevation above the crowd he can see a good deal of what goes on, and guess the rest. Of what he hears, no phrase could be written without blanks few readers could fill in, and for the meaning of which no equivalent can even be hinted. The actual substance of the occurrence, that filters through the cries of panic and of some woman or child, or both, in agony, the brutal bellowings and threats of a predominant drunken lout, presumably Mr. Salter, the incessant appeals to G.o.d and Christ by terrified women, and the rhetorical use of the names of both by the men, with the frequent suggestion that some one else should go for the police--this actual substance may be drily stated thus: Mr. Salter, a plumber by trade, but at present out of work, had given way to ennui, and to relieve it had for two days past been beating and otherwise maltreating his daughter, aged fourteen, and had threatened the life of her mother for endeavouring to protect her. At the moment when he comes into this story (as a mere pa.s.sing event we shall soon forget without regret) he is engaged in the fulfilment of a previous promise to his unhappy wife--a promise we cannot transcribe literally, because of the free employment of a popular adjective (supposed to be a corruption of ”by Our Lady”) before or after any part of speech whatever, as an expletive to drive home meaning to reluctant minds. It is an expression unwelcome on the drawing-room table. But, briefly, what Mr. Salter had so sworn to do was to twist his wife's nose off with his finger and thumb. And he did not seem unlikely to carry out his threat, as Livermore's tenantry lacked spirit or will to interpose, and did nothing but shriek in panic when feminine, and show discretion when masculine; mostly affecting indifference, and saying they warn't any good, them Salters.
The result seemed likely to turn on whether the victim's back hair would endure the tension as a fulcrum, or would come rippin' out like so much gra.r.s.e.
”Let go of her!” half bellows, half shrieks her legal possessor, in answer to a peremptory summons. ”Not for a swiney, soap-eatin'
Apoarstle--not for a rotten parson's egg, like you. Not for a....”
But the defiance is cut short by a blow like the kick of a horse, that lands fairly on the eye-socket with a cracking concussion that can be heard above the tumult, and is followed by a roar of delight from the male vermin, who see all the joys before them of battle unshared and dangerless--the joys bystanders feel in foemen worthy of each other's steel, and open to be made the subject of wagers.
The fare rejects all offers to hold his coat, but throws his felt hat to a boy to hold. Self-elected seconds make a kind of show of getting a clear s.p.a.ce. No idea of a.s.sisting in the suppression of a dangerous drunken savage seems to suggest itself--nothing but what is called ”seeing fair.” This is, to wit, letting him loose on even terms on the only man who has had the courage to intervene between him and his victim. Let us charitably suppose that this is done in the hope that it means prompt and tremendous punishment before the arrival of the police. The cabman sees enough from his raised perch to justify his antic.i.p.ating this with confidence. He can just distinguish in the crowd Mr. Salter's first rush for revenge and its consequences. ”He's got it!” is his comment.