X
Ginger and the Sailor drove to the ground of the Blackhampton Rovers on the roof of a two-horse bus. It was a long way from the Central Station, but they had time in hand; the match did not begin until half-past two, and it was only a little after one at present. As together they made what both felt to be as fateful a journey as they would ever take in the whole course of their lives, their emotions were many and conflicting.
"There y'are, young feller." Ginger pointed to a hoarding on which a chocolate and blue poster was displayed. In spite of his religion of Cucumber, the thrill in his voice was perceptible. "There's a bill of the match."
"Who are we p-playin'?" stammered the Sailor, half choked by a sudden rush of emotion that threatened to unman him.
"Can't yer read?"
"No," gasped the Sailor.
"No?" gasped Ginger.
"I—I mean, I can't see very well."
"Can't see!"
Ginger nearly fell off the bus.
"Not at this distance, I—I mean."
"Blymy." For a moment Ginger was done. Then he said with a ferocity ruthless and terrible, "Young feller, you've pleadin' wellgotto see this afternoon. You've got to keep yer eyes skinned or ... or I'll scrag yer. Understand? If you let me down or you let Dinkie make a mark on us, you'll see what I'll do." There was something deadly now in the freckled skin and the green eyes. Ginger might have been a large reptile from the Island of San Pedro.
The Sailor felt horribly nervous, and the demeanor of Ginger did not console him. The fact was, Ginger was horribly nervous too. It was the moment of his life, the hour to which vaulting ambition had long looked forward. Before this damp, dismal November afternoon was three hours older would be decided the one really pregnant problem of Ginger's universe, namely and to wit, could he contrive to get his foot on the ladder that leads to fame and fortune? If courage and resolution and an insight into the ways of men could bring this thing to pass there was reason for Ginger to be of good faith. But—and the But was a big one—none knew better than Ginger that many are called and few are chosen, that the world is full of gifted and ambitious people who have never quite managed to "deliver the goods," that life is hell for the under dog, and that it is given to no man to measure the exact distance between the cup and the lip.
The ground of the Blackhampton Rovers Football Club came into view as the bus dived into a muddy and narrow lane. It then crossed the bridge of the West Norton and Bagsworth canal, and there before the thrilled eyes of the Sailor was the faded flag of chocolate and blue flying over the enormous corrugated iron roof of the grand stand. But there were not many people about at present. It was not yet two o'clock, moreover the spectators were likely to be few, so dismal was the afternoon, and of such little importance the match, which was a mere affair of the second team.
Ginger, with all his formidable courage, was devoutly thankful that such was the case. It was well that the prestige of the Blackhampton Rovers was not at stake. For he knew that he was taking a terrible risk. The Sailor was young and untried, his experience of the game was slight, and had been gained in poor company. Even the second team of the august Blackhampton Rovers was quite a different matter from the first team of the Isle of Dogs Albion. They were up against class and had better look out!
This was the thought in Ginger's mind as he entered the ground of the famous club, with the Sailor at his heels, and haughtily said, "Player," in response to a demand for entrance money on the part of the man at the gate. Ginger was a little overawed by his surroundings already in spite of a fixed determination not to be overawed by anything.
As for the Sailor, following upon the heels of Ginger and speaking not a word, he was as one in a dream. Yes, this was the ground of the Rovers right enough. There was the flag over the pavilion. God in heaven, what things he had seen, what things he had known since he looked on it last! Somehow the sight of that torn and faded banner of chocolate and blue brought a sudden gush of tears to his eyes. And in a queer way, he felt a better man for shedding them. There at the end of the ground by the farther goal, in the shadow of the legend, Blackhampton Empire Twice Nightly, painted in immense letters on a giant hoarding, was the tree out of which young Arris fell and was pinched by a rozzer on the never-to-be-forgotten day when the Villa came to play the Rovers in that immortal cup tie it had been the glory of his youth to witness. And now ... and now! It was too much! Henry Harper could not believe that he was about to wear the chocolate and blue himself, that he was about to tread the turf of this historic field which had not so much as one blade of grass upon it.
"Young feller." The face of Ginger was pale, his voice was hoarse. "Don't forget what I've told yer. Remember Cucumber. Stick tight to your thatch. There's a lot at stake for both on us. This has got to mean two quid a week for you and me."
The Sailor did not reply. But an odd look came into his deep eyes. Could Ginger have read them, and it was well he could not, those eyes would have accused him of sacrilege. It was not with thoughts like these that Henry Harper defiled the classic battleground, the sacred earth of High Olympus.
XI
In the Rovers' dressing-room the reception of Ginger and the Sailor was cool. Their look of newness, of their bags and overcoats in particular, at once aroused feelings of hostility. They implied greenness and swank; and in athletic circles these carry heavy penalties. Greenness is a grave misdemeanor, swank a deadly sin. Fortunately Ginger was far too wise to talk. He contented himself with a civil passing of the time of day. One less a warrior might have been a little cowed by the glances at his bag and his overcoat. But Ginger was not. He did not care two straws for the opinion of his fellow hirelings. It was his business to impress the club committee.
As for the Sailor, he was not in a condition to understand what was taking place around him. Cucumber might be his name, but his brain was like a ball of fire.
One of the immortal chocolate and blue shirts was handed to him, but when the time came to put it on he stood holding it in his hand.
"Into it, yer fool," said his mentor, in a fierce whisper. It would not be wise to attract by a display of eccentricity the notice of nine pairs of eyes.
With a start, the Sailor came back to the present and thrust his head into the shirt. His thoughts were with young Arris. He, too, had had a dream of playing for the Rovers. If only young Arris could see him now!
The "gate" was small, the afternoon unpleasant, the match by no means a good one. The result did not matter to the Rovers, whose reputation was known wherever football was played. In the view of the ruling powers of that old and famous club, who sat in the center of the grandstand, the object of this rather scratch game was not glory but the discovery of new talent. But small as the audience was, it contained a personage of vast consequence, who sat like Olympian Zeus enthroned on high with his satellites around him.
He was a majestic figure whose importance could be seen at a glance. His expansive fur coat, his superb contour, his spats, his red face, the flower in his buttonhole, and the large cigar with a band round it stuck in the side of his mouth, were a guaranty of status, apart from any consideration of supreme capacity. Mr. Augustus Higginbottom was the chairman of the club.
"Who have we got keepin' goal?" said Olympian Zeus, as he fixed a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses on his nose and looked at his card. "Arper, I see. Who the 'ell's Arper?"
"On trial, Gus." Three or four anxiously officious satellites hastened to enlighten the chairman.
"I rather like the look o' Arper." It was as Plato might have spoken had he ever worn a fur coat and had a large cigar with a band round it tucked in the side of his mouth, and had he placed his services at the disposal of the committee of the Blackhampton Rovers Football Club in order to enable it to distinguish the false from the true.
"Make and shape there," said Mr. Higginbottom. "Light on his pins. Gets down to the ball."
"Oh, well stopped, young un!" shouted an adventurous satellite, in order that an official decree might be promulgated to the general public.
It was known at once round the ground that the critics had got their eyes on the new goalkeeper.
"I've heard say, Gus," said the adventurous one, "that this youth—wellsaved,mylad!—is a sailor."
"Sailor is he?" Mr. Higginbottom was so much impressed by the information that he began to chew the end of his cigar. "Ops about, don't he. I tell you what, Albert"—six satellites craned to catch the chairman's ukase—"I like the cut o' the Sailor."
"Played, young un," cried the grandstand.
"Albert," said the chairman, "who's that cab oss?"
"The right full back, Gus?"
"Him I mean. He's no use." The chairman glanced augustly at his card. "Jukes, I see. Who the 'ell's Jukes?"
"On trial," said Mr. Satellite Albert. "But I don't altogether agree with you there, Gus." Albert differed deferentially from the chairman. "There's nothing like a touch o' Ginger."
"I grant you," said the chairman. "But the goods has to be there as well. Ginger's no class. Moves like a height-year-old with the staggers."
"Wake up, Jukes." The official decree was promulgated from the grandstand.
It was known at once round the ground that it was all up with Jukes.
"Chrysanthemum Top can't play for rock cakes and Everton toffee," was the opinion of the proletariat in the sixpenny stand.
"Ginger's no class," said Mr. Augustus Higginbottom. "There's no class about Ginger."
"Pull up your socks, Jukes," the grandstand exhorted him.
Ginger knew already, without any official intimation, that he was being outplayed. Do as he would he did not seem able to mobilize quickly enough to stop these swift and skillful forwards. He had never met anything like them on Cox's Piece. Ginger knew already, without any help from the grandstand, that he was out of it. He was doing his level best, he was doing it doggedly with set teeth, but the truth was he felt like a carthorse compared with these forwards of the enemy who were racehorses one and all.
But the Sailor ... the Sailor was magnificent so far. He had stopped every shot, and two at least only a goalkeeper touched with the divine fire could have parried. Half time was signaled, and in spite of the inefficiency of the right full back, the enemy had yet to score a goal.
As the players walked off the field to refit for the second half, a special cheer was raised for young Harper.
"Played, me lad." It was the voice of the chairman of the club from the center of the grandstand.
"Played, me lad." Three hundred throats echoed the cry. Zeus himself had spoken.
A ragged urchin, who had paid his threepence with the best of them and had therefore a right to express his opinion in a public manner, looked up into the sweating face and the haggard eyes of Ginger as he walked off the ground. "Go 'ome, Ginger. Yer can't play for nuts. Yer no class."
Like a sick gladiator, Ginger staggered into the dressing-room, but in his eyes was defiance of fate and not despair of it.
"Mate," he said, in a hollow voice to the attendant, "fetch me six pennorth o' brandy."
He dipped his head into a basin of cold water and then sat in a truculent silence. He did not so much as glance at the Sailor, who had the rest of the team around him. Where did Harper come from? What club did he play for? Was it true that he had been a sailor?
Henry Harper was only able to answer these questions very shyly and imperfectly. He was in a dream. He could hardly realize where he was or what he was doing. When they returned to the field of play, the goalkeeper, already a favorite, was given a little private cheer. But the Sailor heard it not; he was dreaming, dreaming, walking on air.
"Buck up, Ginger," piped the shrill urchin, as the tense and heroic figure of that warrior came on the field last of all. But the grim eyes and the set face were not in need of admonition. Ginger was prepared to do or die.
"Cab Oss can use his weight," said the All Highest.
"First good thing he's done," said Mr. Satellite Albert. The right full back, it seemed, had charged like a tiger at the center forward of the enemy and had laid him low.
"Good on yer, Ginger," cried the proletariat.
After this episode, the game grew rough. And this was in Ginger's favor. Outclassed he might be in pace and skill, but no human soul could outclass Ginger in sheer fighting quality when his back was to the wall. Before long the stricken lay around him.
"It isn't footba'," said Mr. Augustus Higginbottom. "You can't call it footba', but it's the right game to play under the circumstances."
It began to seem that the enemy would never score the goal it so much desired. The goalkeeper kept up his form in quite a marvelous way, parrying shot after shot of every range and pace from all points of the compass. He was a man inspired. And the right full back was truly terrible now. He had ceased to trouble about the ball, but wherever he saw a red-shirted adversary he brought him down and fell on him. Ginger did not achieve any particular feat of arms, but his moral effect was considerable.
The shades of night were falling, but not a single goal had been scored by either party. The goalkeeper grew more and more wonderful, the right full back was more like a lion than ever.
"Blame my cats," said Mr. Augustus Higginbottom, "that Ginger's mustard. But they'll never stan' him in a League match. What do you say, Davis?"
Mr. Davis, a small buttoned-up man in a knitted comforter and a brown bowler hat, had given far fewer opinions than his peers. He was a man of deeds. He had played for Englandv.Scotland in his distinguished youth, but no one would have guessed it to look at him.
"Quite agree, Gus," said Mr. Davis, in a measured tone. "Football is not a game for Ginger. Not the man we are looking for. But that goalkeeper..."
"That's all right, Davis," said Mr. Augustus Higginbottom, "we are going to make no mistake about him."
Night fell, the referee blew his whistle, the match was at an end, and still not a goal had been scored. Utterly weary, covered with mud from head to heel, the twenty-two players trooped back to the dressing-room. They flung off the reeking garments of battle and fought for the icy shower bath, the heroic Ginger still the foremost in the fray.
"Look slippy into yer duds, young feller," he breathed hoarsely in the ear of the Sailor. "We've pleadin' well got to catch that kermittee afore it goes."
XII
Ginger might have spared himself all anxiety in regard to the "kermittee." The Great General Staff had made up its mind in the matter already. The directors would like to see Harper in the committee room before he went.
"What abaht me?" said Ginger.
"It's Harper they want to see," said their emissary. "They don't want to see no one else."
"Oh, don't they!" was Ginger's eloquent comment to himself.
"Ready, Harper?" said the emissary, with the air of a law-giver. "I'll show you the way."
"Come on, Sailor boy," said Ginger, with his affectionate avuncular air, as he gave a final touch, aided by a hairbrush and a looking-glass, to his auburn locks which he wore in the form of a fringe on his forehead.
"Jukes, there's your expenses," said the emissary rather haughtily, as he handed Ginger a sovereign. "The directors don't require to see you."
"I'd like to see them," said the imperturbable Ginger.
"Their time is valuable."
"So's mine," said Ginger. "Come on, Sailor boy."
The chairman, now enthroned in the committee room, had short shrift for Ginger.
"Jukes," he said with brutal directness, as he chewed the end of his cigar, "we didn't send for you. You are not the Rovers' sort and never will be. You are a trier an' all that, you are a good plucked un, but the Rovers is only out for one thing, an' that's class."
This oration was extremely well delivered, cigar in mouth, yet the committee seemed to be more impressed by it than Ginger himself.
"That's right, Gus," said Mr. Satellite Albert. "Those are our views."
Mr. Augustus Higginbottom might have expressed the views of the committee, but it did not appear that they were the views of Mr. W. H. Jukes. That warrior stood, tweed cap in hand, the Sailor by his side, as though they did not in any way concern him.
"You understand, Jukes?" said the chairman.
No reply.
"Arper here is the man we sent for. Arper"—the impressiveness of Mr. Higginbottom was very carefully calculated—"you've no polish, me lad, you lack experience, you are young, you've got to grow and you've got to learn, but you might make a goalkeeper if you was took in hand by the Rovers. Understand me, Arper,"—the chairman raised an eloquent forefinger—"I say yemightif you was took in hand an' trained by a club o' the class o' the Rovers. But you've a long way to go. Do you understand, me lad?"
"Yes, mister," said the Sailor humbly.
The "mister" jarred horribly upon the sensitive ear of Mr. W. H. Jukes, who whispered, "Call him 'sir,' yer fool."
"Very well, then," proceeded Mr. Augustus Higginbottom, "now we'll come to business. My feller directors"—the chairman waved a magniloquent hand—"agrees with me that the Rovers can offer you a pound a week because you are promisin', although not justified as you are at present. Now what do you say?"
"Nothin' doin'," said Mr. W. H. Jukes, before the goalkeeper could say anything. "Come on, Sailor boy. We are wastin' our time. We'll be gettin' to the station."
"My remarks, Jukes, was not addressed to you," said the chairman with awful dignity. "The directors has no use foryourservices, as I thought I 'ad made clear."
"I'm sorry, sir," said Ginger, with a considered politeness that seemed rather to surprise the committee. "Come on, Sailor. A quid a week! I think we can do better nor that."
"One moment," said Mr. Augustus Higginbottom. There was a hurried consultation while Ginger and the goalkeeper began to move to the door. "One moment, Arper."
Ginger, drawing the Sailor after him, returned with every sign of reluctance to the middle of the room.
"Jukes," said the chairman, "you have nothing to do with this matter, anyway."
"No, sir," said Ginger, with a deference he was very far from feeling.
"You quite understand that, Jukes?"
"Yes, sir," said Ginger, with formidable politeness.
"Very good. Now, Arper, the directors is prepared to rise to twenty-five shillings a week, an' that's their limit."
"I'm sorry, gentlemen," said Ginger, "but twenty-five bob a week is not a bit o' use to either on us. We like the town what we've seen on it, but two pound a week's our minimum. It's only wastin' time to talk of less. If we ain't worth two pound a week to the Blackhampton Rovers, I dessey we'll be worth it to the Otspur or the Villa. Come on, Sailor. We're only wastin' our time, boy."
This carefully delivered ultimatum made quite a sensation. There was not one of the committee who would not cheerfully have slain Mr. W. H. Jukes. But they wanted that goalkeeper very badly. Moreover, the mention of the Hotspur and the Villa did not lessen this desire.
"One moment, Jukes."
A further consultation followed. This matter called for very masterful and, at the same time, very delicate handling.
Mr. Augustus Higginbottom went to the length of removing his cigar from the corner of his mouth.
"See here, Jukes," said he, "it's not you we want, it's the goalkeeper. Now, Arper, I am empowered by my feller directors to offer you two pound a week with a rise next year if you turn out satisfactory."
"That's more like it," said Ginger coolly. "Two pound a week and a rise next year. What do you say, Sailor boy? Or do you think it would be better to see the Villa?"
It was as much as the chairman could do to keep from pitching Jukes out of the room. His cheek was amazing, but if this course was taken, it was clear that Harper would not adorn his person with a chocolate and blue shirt.
The unlucky fact was that the goalkeeper and the right full back had only one mind between them. And that mind was not in the possession of the goalkeeper.
"We've allus played together," said Ginger, "and we allus shall. I've taught him all he knows—haven't I, Sailor boy?"
"Yep," said the Sailor, coming humbly into the conversation for the first time.
"We've allus played for the same club, we lodge together, we work together, we are pals in everythink—ain't we, Sailor boy?"
"Yep," said the Sailor.
"And if you don't want us it's all the same to us—ain't it, Sailor boy?"
"Yep," said the Sailor.
There followed a final consultation between the chairman of the club and his fellow committee-men. But only one conclusion to the matter was possible. The Blackhampton Rovers must either accept Mr. W. H. Jukes with all his limitations, or lose the type of goalkeeper they had been seeking up and down the land for many a year.
XIII
To the Sailor, the visit to Blackhampton was a fairy tale. At first, he could not realize that he had worn the chocolate and blue, and had performed wonderful deeds at the instance of a power beyond himself. As for the sequel, involving a farewell to the wharf of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited, and a triumphal return to his natal city as a salaried player of the Rovers, even when this had really happened, it was very hard to believe.
Ginger took the credit. And if he had not had a talent for affairs these things could not have come about. It was entirely due to him that Henry Harper learned to play football, and had he not mastered the art, it is unlikely that he would ever have found the key to his life.
The Sailor was a simple, modest soul. He felt the sudden turn of fortune's wheel was due to no grace of his own. From that amazing hour when certain documents were signed and Henry Harper, who had suffered terrible things to gain a few dollars a month, began to draw a salary of two pounds a week with surprisingly little to do in order to earn it, his devotion to Ginger became almost that of a dog for its master.
They both had their feet on the ladder now, if ever two young men had. It might be luck, it might be pluck, it might be a combination of anything you chose to call it, but there it was; two untried men had imposed their personalities upon some of the shrewdest judges of football in the United Kingdom. The Sailor had shown genius on the field; Ginger had shown genius of a kind more valuable.
On the Monday week following their triumph, they invaded Blackhampton again. This time they were accompanied not merely by their Gladstone bags and their velvet-collared overcoats, but they came with the whole of their worldly goods.
They obtained—-"they" meaning Ginger—some quite first-rate lodgings in Newcastle Street, near the canal. These had been recommended by Dinkie Dawson, who lodged in the next street but two. The charges of the new landlady, Miss Gwladys Foldal, were much higher than those of Mrs. Sparks, but the accommodation was Class compared to Paradise Alley. As Ginger informed the Sailor, socially they had taken a big step up.
For example, Miss Foldal herself was, in Ginger's opinion, far more a woman of the world than Mrs. Sparks. Her hair was golden, it was always amazingly curled about tea time, when she had newly powdered her nose; she maintained a "slavey" and did little of the housework herself, apparently never soiling her well-kept hands with anything menial; also she had an undoubted gift of conversation, could play the piano, and if much entreated would lift occasionally an agreeable voice in song; in a word, Miss Foldal was a lady versed in the enchantments of good society.
The Sailor was quite overawed at first by Miss Foldal. Always very responsive to the impact of her sex, a word or a look from the least of its members was enough to embarrass him. Miss Foldal, with her tempered brilliancy and her matured charm, impressed him greatly.
Even Ginger, who was so cynical in regard to ladies in general and landladies in particular, was inclined to approve her. This was a great concession on Ginger's part, because up till then there were only two persons in the universe whom Ginger did approve, one being himself, whom he approved wholeheartedly, the other being Dinkie Dawson, whom he accepted with reservations.
Ginger and the Sailor soon settled down in their new quarters. They were well received by their fellow players. They must not look beyond the second team at present, so august was the circle in which they now moved, but Harper was "the goods" undoubtedly; one of these days the world would hear of him; while as for Jukes, although without genius as a player he was such a trier that he was bound to improve. Indeed, he began to improve in every match in which he appeared in this exalted company. His time was not yet, but the directors of the club, resentful as they were of the coup that Ginger had played, shrewdly foresaw that a man of such will and determination might one day prove a sound investment.
These were golden days for the Sailor. The perils and the hardships aboard theMargaret Carey, the titanic fights with nature, the ceaseless struggles on the yards of that crazy vessel in order to save himself from being dashed to pieces on the deck below, had been such a training for his present life as nothing else could have been.
It was now for the first time that Henry Harper began to envisage that queer thing, Himself. He was never at any period an egotist in a narrow way. Fate had mercilessly flogged a sense of proportion into him at the threshold of his life; whatever the future had in store he would never be able to forget that man himself is a creature of strange, terrible, and tragic destiny. As soon as a little prosperity came to him, he began to develop. The respect of others for the accidental prowess he wore so unassumingly, good food, regular habits, a sense of security, did much for Henry Harper in this critical phase of his fortunes.
First he learned to take a pride in his body. That was a very simple ethic of the great religion to be revealed to him. He was quick to see that he was one of a company of highly trained athletes whom nature had endowed nobly. Together with his fellow players, he was exercised with as much care as if he had been a racehorse. He was bathed and massaged, groomed and tended; such a sense of physical well-being came to him that he could not help growing in grace and beauty, in strength and freedom of mind and soul.
After several weeks of this new and wonderful life there was still a dark secret that continued to haunt the Sailor. He could neither read nor write, and he was living in a world in which these accomplishments were taken for granted. He had to conceal the fact as best he could. None must know, but a means would have to be found of overcoming this stigma.
He dared not speak of it to Ginger, or to Miss Foldal either, much as he liked and respected her. He remembered the face of Mrs. Sparks. But after giving much thought to the matter, he made cautious inquiries, and then one morning it suddenly occurred to him that he was a fool. Here was Henry Harper in his native city of Blackhampton, certain parts of which he knew like the back of his hand, and yet he had forgotten the night school in Driver's Lane that Cocky Footit and Leary Jeacock went to and never did any good afterwards.
The thought hit the Sailor hard as he was seated at his princely breakfast of eggs and bacon, very choicely fried, and such a cup of coffee as any man might have envied him. He remembered how seven years ago, in the Cocky Footit and Leary Jeacock days, he simply daren't go home at night unless he had sold a certain number ofEvening Stars. And what a home it was for any boy to go to!
In spite of the eggs and bacon and the warm fire and Ginger seated opposite with theAthletic Newspropped against the coffee pot, a shudder crept through Henry Harper. He regretted bitterly that he should have allowed his thoughts to stray. But how could they go back to Cocky Footit and Leary Jeacock and the night school they attended in Driver's Lane, without taking a leap unbidden to that other lane which ran level with Driver's, with the rag and bone yard and the iron gates where dwelt Auntie and her cart whip, the only home at that time he had known?
He couldn't help shuddering at the picture in his mind. Where was Auntie now? How would she look to one who had sailed before the mast over all the oceans of the world?
The subject of Auntie had a morbid fascination. It held him as completely as the night school in Driver's Lane. The truth was, it was impossible to recall the one without envisaging the other.
As soon as he had finished breakfast, he put on the overcoat with the velvet collar and the smart tweed cap, stepped into Newcastle Street and began to wander across the canal bridge. Then he turned to the right through Clover Street, crossed the tram lines, passed the Crown and Cushion, his favorite public-house of yore, where he had listened many an evening to the music and singing that floated through the swing doors, with always a half formed thought at the back of his mind which he dared not face. As of old, he stood to listen, but there was no music now, for it was only ten o'clock in the morning, and it didn't begin until seven at night.
He was not afraid of the life of seven years ago. As he stood outside the Crown and Cushion that was the idea which exalted him. Henry Harper was not obliged to meet Auntie, but was going to do so out of curiosity, and because he owed it to himself to prove that he no longer went in fear of her.
That might be so, but as he passed through the old familiar streets and alleys, with bareheaded Aunties standing arms akimbo in conversation with the neighbors, while many a Henry Harper sprawled half naked in the gutter, his courage almost failed. The slums of Blackhampton had changed less than he in seven years.
Yes, this was Crow's Yard. And there at the door of No. 1, as of yore, was Mother Crow, toothless and yellow, unspeakably foul of word and aspect, whose man often threatened to swing for her and finally swung for another. Henry Harper stole swiftly through Crow's Yard, fearing at every step that he would be recognized.
With a thudding heart, he came into Wright's Lane. It was like a horrible dream; he nearly turned and ran. What if Auntie was still there? He had just seen Mother Crow and Meg Baker and Cock-eyed Polly and others of her circle. Well, if she was...?
The beating of his heart would not let him meet the question. He ought not to have come. All the same, there was nothing to be afraid of now.
No, there was nothing to be.... Again he nearly turned and ran. The iron gates were before him. There were the piles of stinking bones, old newspapers, foul rags, scrap iron, and all sorts of odds and ends. And there was the broken-down handcart he had trundled so often through the mud. The wheels were still on it, but they looked like new ones. And there on the wall of the shed was the nail.
A sick thrill passed through Henry Harper. He couldn't make out in the thick November halflight whether on that nail there was really what he thought there was. A wave of curiosity forced him to enter the yard. The whip was hanging there as usual. The heavy handle bound with strips of brass shone through the gloom. The sight of it seemed again to hold him in a thrall of terror. As if it were a nightmare he fought to throw it off. He had been a sailor; he was the goalkeeper for the Blackhampton Rovers; he was earning two pounds a week; he had a velvet collar to his overcoat; there was no need to be afraid of...
"Now, young man?"
A thick, wheezy grunt came out of the inner murk of the yard and sent a chill down the spine of Henry Harper.
"What can I do for yer?"
Auntie, cheerfully alcoholic as ever, stood before him in all her shapeless obscenity. She stood as of old, exuding gin and humor and latent savagery. She had changed so little that he felt he had not changed either. At first he could not believe that she did not recognize him.
Auntie stood eyeing him with disfavor. The good clothes, the clean collar, the polished boots told against him heavily. Most probably a detective.
"What do you want forthat, missus?" He pointed to the nail.
"Not for sale." The light he had seen so often sprang to her eyes. "You can have anythink else. Scrap iron, rags and bones, waste paper, bedsteads, but yer can't have that." And Auntie looked at him, wheezing humorously at the idea of anyone wanting to buy such an article. Suddenly Henry Harper met again the eyes of Medusa in their depth and power.
At once he knew why he had stayed those long years under her roof. It was not merely that he had nowhere else to go. There was a living devil in the soul of Auntie and it was far stronger than anything at present in the soul of Henry Harper. Already he could feel the old helpless terror striking into him again. He was forgetting that he had been a sailor, he was forgetting the Blackhampton Rovers, he was forgetting his two pounds a week....
"Well, missus, if yer won't, yer won't," he said, with a mighty effort of the will.
Auntie laughed her old rich note of genial defiance, as if an affection for a thing of little value and less use must be defended. As she did so, a miserable cur sneaked out through the open door of the house beyond the archway. She turned to it humorously.
"I thought I toldyouto keep in."
The dog cast a look at her and sneaked in again.
"Mornin', missus."
"Mornin', young man. Sorry I can't oblige yer." It was the old note of affability that always endeared her to the neighbors.
But it was not of Auntie that Henry Harper was thinking when he got into Wright's Lane. It was of the dog. In the eyes of that animal he had seen his former self.
XIV
It had been Henry Harper's intention to go on across the Lammas and make inquiries about the night school. But his courage suddenly failed. As soon as he got into Wright's Lane, he felt that for one day at least he had seen enough of the haunts of his youth.
As he stood at the corner, trying to make up his mind what to do, an intense longing for Newcastle Street came upon him. It seemed wiser to postpone the night school until the afternoon.
He had not expected to find the other side of the canal quite so bad as it had proved to be. It seemed ages away in point of experience. There was no place for good clothes, a clean collar, and polished boots in the region the other side of the canal. It was very unfortunate that the night school lay in the middle of that area.
Henry Harper was in an unhappy frame of mind when he sat down to dinner with Ginger at one o'clock. A very bad aura enveloped him. The sight of Auntie in her lair would take him some little time to overcome. Then the sense of failure was unpleasant. It was unworthy of a sailor to have shirked his job. Every day made it more necessary for something to be done. His pretence of understanding the newspapers when he could hardly read a word was telling against him with Ginger. His contribution to the after-supper conversation was so feeble, as a rule, that Ginger was almost afraid "he was not all there."
However, he would inquire about the night school that afternoon. The matter was so urgent that he could have no peace until he had moved in it. But fate, having taken his measure, began to marshal silent invisible forces.
To begin with the forces were silent enough, yet they were not exactly invisible. A little after three, while the Sailor, still in the Valley of Decision, was looking into the fire, wondering whether it was possible after all to postpone the task until the following morning when he might be in a better frame of mind, Ginger looked out of the window, announced that "there wasn't half a fog coming over," and that he had a good mind to make himself comfortable indoors for the rest of the day.
This was enough for the Sailor. The fog put the night school out of the question for that afternoon; it must be postponed till the morrow. All the same, he fell into a black and bitter mood in which self-disgust came uppermost.
Ginger's good mind to stay indoors did not materialize. As soon as the clock chimed four he remembered that he had to play a hundred up with Dinkie at the Crown and Cushion.
At quarter-past four, Miss Foldal came in, drew down the blinds, lit the gas, and laid the cloth for tea. She then sought permission, as the fire was such a good one, to toast a muffin at it, which she proceeded to do with the elegance that marked her in everything.
The Sailor had never seen anybody quite so elegant as Miss Foldal in the afternoon. The golden hair was curled and crimped, the blonde complexion freshly powdered, there was a superb display of jewelry upon a fine bosom, she was tightly laced, and the young man watching her with grave curiosity heard her stays creak as she bent down at the fire.
Two ladies further apart than Miss Foldal and Auntie would be hard to conceive. Dimly the young man had begun to realize that it was a very queer cosmos in which he had been called to exercise his being. There were whole stellar spaces between Auntie and Miss Foldal.
The latter lady was not merely elegant, she was kind. Miss Foldal was very kind indeed to Mr. Harper. From the day he had entered her house, she had shown in many subtle ways that she wanted to make him feel at home. And Mr. Harper, who up till now only realized Woman extrinsically, already considered Miss Foldal a very nice lady.
It was true that Ginger referred to her rather contemptuously as Old Tidde-fol-lol, and saw, or affected to see, something deep in her most innocent actions. But the Sailor, with a natural reverence for her sex in spite of all he had suffered at its hands, was constrained to believe these slighting references to Old Tidde-fol-lol were lapses of taste on the part of his hero. Homer nods on occasion. Henry Harper was not acquainted with that impressive fact at this period of his life, but he was sure that Ginger was a little unfortunate in his references to Miss Foldal.
The Sailor was beginning to like Miss Foldal immensely. He did not go beyond that. The great apparition of Woman in her cardinal aspect had not yet appeared to him, and was not to do so for long days to come. As Ginger said, he was a kid at present, and hardly knew he was born. Still, he was beginning to take notice.
"Would you like me to pour out your tea, Mr. Harper?"
"Thank you, miss." He was no longer so ignorant as to say, "Thank you, lady."
"Sugar?"
"Please, miss."
He admired immensely the manipulation of the sugar tongs by those elegant hands. They were inclined to be fat and were perhaps rather broad to the purview of a connoisseur, but they were covered in rings set with stones more or less precious, and the soul of Henry Harper responded instinctively to all that they meant and stood for. The hands of Auntie were not as these.
"Youdotake two lumps and milk, of course?"
There was an ease and a charm about Miss Foldal that made the Sailor think of velvet.
"Now take a piece of muffin while it's warm."
She offered the muffin, already steeped in delicious butter, with the slightly imperious charm of a Madame Récamier, not that Henry Harper knew any more about Madame Récamier than he did about Homer at this period of his career. Yet he may have known all about them even then. He may have known all about them and forgotten all about them, and when the time came to unseal the inner chambers of his consciousness, perhaps he would remember them again.
Auntie had never handed him a muffin in such a way as that. Mrs. Sparks hadn't either. Ginger might sneer and call her Old Tidde-fol-lol, although not to her face—he was always very polite to her face—but there was no doubt she was absolutely a lady, and her muffins ... her muffins wereextra.
This afternoon, Miss Foldal lingered over the tea table in most agreeable discourse. The fog was too thick for her to venture into the market place, where she wanted to go.
"If it's shopping you want, miss," said Mr. Harper, with an embarrassment that made her smile, "let me go and do it for you."
"I couldn't think of it, Mr. Harper."
"I will, miss, I'll be very glad to." She liked the deep eyes of this strikingly handsome young man.
"I couldn't think of it, Mr. Harper. I couldn't really. Besides, my shopping will keep till tomorrow."
"You know best, miss." There was resignation tempered by a certain chivalrous disappointment. Quite unconsciously, Mr. Harper was doing his utmost to rise to the standard of speech and manner of Miss Foldal, which was far beyond any he had yet experienced.
"I saw in theEvening Starthat you won your match on Saturday."'
"Yes, miss, four-two." But the mention of theEvening Starwas a stab. Every night theEvening Starpresented its tragic problem.
"Mr. Jukes tells me you will be having a trial with the first team soon."
Mr. Jukes had told Miss Foldal nothing of the kind. She was the last person to whom he would have made any such confidence.
"Oh no, miss." The native modesty was pleasant in her ear. "I'm nothing near good enough yet."
"It will come, though. It is bound to come."
The young man was not stirred by this prophecy. His mind had gone back to the night school; it was tormenting itself with the problem ever before it now. He would have liked to bring the conversation round to the matter, if only it could be done without disclosing the deadly secret. But the memory of Mrs. Sparks was still fresh. There was no denying that for a chap of nineteen not to have the elements of the three r's was a disgrace; it was bound to prejudice him in the eyes of a lady of education.
Still, Miss Foldal was not Mrs. Sparks. Being a higher sort of lady perhaps she would be able to make allowances. Yet Henry Harper didn't want her or anyone else to make allowances. However, he could not afford to be proud.
Chance it, suddenly decreed the voice within. She won't eat you anyway.