Fortitude (Walpole)/Book 1/Chapter 12

CHAPTER XII

BROCKETTS: ITS CHARACTER, AND ESPECIALLY MRS. BROCKETT

I

ON the next afternoon about six o'clock, Mr, Zanti, accompanied by the languid and shabby gentleman whom Peter had noticed before, appeared in the shop.

“Signor Rastelli,” said Mr. Zanti, and the languid gentleman shook hands with Peter as though he were conferring a great benefit upon him and he hoped Peter wouldn't forget it.

“Zis,” said Mr. Zanti, “is my young friend, Peter Westcott, whom I love as if 'e were my own son—Signor Rastelli,” he continued, turning to Peter, “I've known him for very many years and I can only say zat ze longer I 'ave known him ze more admirable I 'ave thought 'im.”

The gentleman took off his tall hat; stroked it, put it on again and looked, with his languid eyes, at Peter.

“And,” continued Mr. Zanti, cheerfully, conscious perhaps that he was carrying all the conversation on his own shoulders, “'e will take you to a 'ouse where 'e has been for—'ow many years, Signor?”

“Ten,” said that gentleman.

“For ten years—every comfort. Zere's a little room 'e tells me where you will be 'appy—and all your food and friendship for one pound a week. There!” he ended triumphantly.

“Thank you very much,” said Peter, but he did not altogether like the look of the seedily dressed gentleman, and would much rather have stayed with Mr. Zanti.

He had packed his black bag in readiness, and now he fetched it and, after promising to be in the shop at half-past eight the next morning, started off with his melancholy guide.

The lamps were coming out, and a silence that often falls upon London just before sunset had come down upon the traffic and the people. Windows caught the departing flame, held it for an instant, and sank into grey twilight.

“I know what you're thinking about me,” Peter's companion suddenly said (he was walking very fast as though trying to catch something), “I know you don't like me. I could see it at once—I never made a mistake about those things. You were saying to yourself: ‘What does that horrible, over-dressed stranger want to come interfering with me for?’”

“Indeed, I wasn't,” said Peter, breathlessly, because the bag was so heavy and they were walking so fast.

“Oh, yes, you were. Never mind. I'm not a popular man, and when you know me better you'll like me still less. That's always the way I affect people. And always with the best intentions. And you were thinking, too, that you never saw anything less Italian than I am, and you're sure my name's Brown or Smith, and indeed it's true that I was born in Clapham, but my parents were Italians—refugees, you know, although I'm sure I don't know what from—and every one calls me the Signor, and so there you are—and I don't see how I'm to help it. But that's just me all over—always fighting against the tide but I don't complain, I'm sure.” All this said very rapidly and in a melancholy way as though tears were not very far off. Then he suddenly added:

“Let me carry your bag for you.”

“No, thank you,” said Peter, laughing, “I can manage it.”

“Ah, well, you look strong,” said the Signor appreciatively. “I envy you, I'm sure—never had a day's health myself—but I don't complain.”

By this time they had passed the British Museum and were entering into the shadows of Bloomsbury, At this hour, when the lamps and the stars are coming out, and the sun is going in, Bloomsbury has an air of melancholy that is peculiarly its own. The dark grey houses stand as a perpetual witness of those people that have found life too hard for them and have been compelled to give in. The streets of those melancholy squares seen beneath flickering lamp light and a wan moon protest against all gaiety of spirit and urge resignation and a mournful acquiescence. Bloomsbury is Life on Thirty Shillings a week without the drama of starvation or the tragedy of the Embankment, but with all the ignominy of making ends meet under the stern and relentless eye of a boarding-house keeper.

But of all the sad and unhappy squares in Bloomsbury the saddest is Bennett Square. It is shut in by all the other Bloomsbury Squares and is further than any of them from the lights and traffic of popular streets. There are only four lamp posts there—one at each corner—and between these patches of light everything is darkness and desolation.

Every house in Bennett Square is a boarding-house, and No. 72 is Brockett's.

“Mrs. Brockett is a very terrifying but lovable woman,” said the Signor darkly, and Peter, whose spirits had sunk lower and ever lower as he stumbled through the dark streets, felt, at the sound of this threatening prophecy, entirely miserable.

No. 72 is certainly the grimiest of the houses in Bennett Square. It is tall and built of that grey stone that takes the mind of the observer back to those school precincts of his youth. It is a thin house, not broad and fat and comfortably bulging, but rather flinging a spiteful glance at the house that squeezed it in on either side. It is like a soured, elderly caustic old maid, unhappy in its own experiences and determined to make every one else unhappy in theirs. Peter, of course, did not see these things, because it was very dark, but he wished he had not come.

The Signor had a key of his own and Peter was soon inside a hall that smelt of oilcloth and the cooking of beef; the gas was burning, but the only things that really benefited from its light were a long row of mournful black coats that hung against the wall.

Peter sneezed, and was suddenly conscious of an enormous woman whom he knew by instinct to be Mrs. Brockett. She was truly enormous—she stood facing him like some avenging Fate. She had the body of a man—flat, straight, broad. Her black hair, carefully parted down the middle, was brushed back and bound into hard black coils low down over the neck. She stood there, looking down on them, her arms akimbo her legs apart. Her eyes were black and deep set, her cheek bones very prominent, her nose thin and sharp; her black dress caught in a little at the waist, fell otherwise in straight folds to her feet. There was a faint moustache on her upper lip, her hands, with long white slender fingers, were beautiful, lying straight by her side, against the stuff of her dress.

“Well?” she said—and her voice was deep like a man's. “Good evening, Signor.”

“Good evening, Madame.” He took off his hat and gave her a deep bow. “This is the young gentleman, Mr. Westcott, of whom I spoke to you this morning.”

“Well—how are you, Mr. Westcott?” Her words were sharply clipped and had the resonance of coins as they rang in the air.

“Quite well, thank you,” said Peter, and he noticed, in spite of his dismay at her appearance, that the clasp of her hand was strong and friendly.

“Florence will show you your room, Mr. Westcott. It is a pound a week including your meals and attendance and the use of the general sitting-room. If you do not like it you must tell me and we will wish one another good evening. If you do like it I shall do my best to make you comfortable.”

Peter found afterwards that this was her invariable manner of addressing a new-comer. It could scarcely be called a warm welcome. She turned and called, “Florence!” and a maid-servant, diminutive in size but spotless in appearance, suddenly appeared from nowhere at all, as it seemed to Peter.

He followed this girl up many flights of stairs. On every side of him were doors and, once and again, gas flared above him. It was all very cold, and gusts of wind passed up and down, whisking in and out of the oilcloth, and Peter thought that he had never seen so many closed doors in his life.

At last they came to an end of the stairs and there with a skylight covering the passage outside was his room. It was certainly small and the window looked out on a dismal little piece of garden far below and a great number of roofs and chimneys and at last a high dome rising like a black cloud in the farther distance. It was spotlessly clean.

“I think it will do very well, thank you,” said Peter and he put down his black bag.

“Do you?” said the maid. “There's a bell,” she said, pointing, “and the meal's at seving sharp,” She disappeared.

He spent the time, very cheerfully, taking the things out of the black bag and arranging them. He had suddenly, as was natural in him, forgotten the dismal approach to the house, the overwhelming appearance of Mrs. Brockett, his recent loneliness. Here, at last, was a little spot that he could, for a time, at any rate, call his own. He could come, at any time of the evening and shut his door, and be alone here, master of everything that he surveyed. Perhaps—and the thought sent the blood to his cheeks—it was here that he would write! He looked about the room lovingly. It was quite bare except for the bed, the washing stand and a chair, and there was no fire-place. But he arranged the books, David Copperfield, Don Quixote, Henry Lessingham, The Roads, The Downs, on the window sill, and the little faded photograph of his mother on the ledge above the washing basin. He had scarcely finished doing these things when there was a tap on his door. He opened it, and found the Signor, no longer in a tail-coat, but in a short, faded blue jacket that made him look shabbier than ever.

“Excuse—not intruding, I hope?” He looked gloomily round the room, “Everything all right?”

“Very nice,” said Peter.

“Ah, you'll like it at first—but never mind. Wonderful woman, Mrs. Brockett. I expect you were alarmed just now.”

“I was, a little,” admitted Peter.

“Ah, well, we all are at first. But you'll get over that, you'll love her—every one loves her. By the way,” he pushed his hand through his hair, “what I came about was to tell you that we all foregather—as you might say—in the sitting-room before dinner—yes—and I'd like to introduce you to my wife, the Signora—not Italian, you know—but you'll like her better than me—every one's agreed that hers is a nicer character.”

Peter, trembling a little at the thought of more strangers, followed the Signor downstairs and found, in the middle of one of the dark landings, looking as though she had been left there by some one and completely forgotten, a little wisp of a woman with bright yellow hair and a straw coloured dress, and this was the Signora. This lady shook hands with him in a frightened tearful way and made choking noises all the way downstairs, and this distressed Peter very much until he discovered that she had a passion for cough drops, which she kept in her pocket in a little tin box and sucked perpetually. The Signor drove his wife and Peter before him into the sitting-room. This was a very brightly-coloured room with any number of brilliant purple vases on the mantelpiece, a pink wall-paper, a great number of shining pictures in the most splendid gilt frames, and in the middle of the room a bright green settee with red cushions on it. On this settee, which was round, with a space in the middle of it, like a circus, several persons were seated, but there was apparently no conversation. They all looked up at the opening of the door, and Peter was so dazzled by the bright colour of the room that it was some time before he could collect his thoughts.

But the Signor beckoned to him, and he followed.

“Allow me, Mrs. Monogue,” said the Signor, “to introduce to you Mr. Peter Westcott.” The lady in question was stout, red-faced, and muffled in shawls. She extended him a haughty finger.

There followed then Miss Norah Monogue, a girl with a pleasant smile and untidy hair, Miss Dall, a lady with a very stiff back, a face like an interrogation mark, because her eyebrows went up in a point and a very tight black dress, Mr. Herbert Crumley, and Mr. Peter Crumley, two short, thin gentlemen with wizened and anxious faces (they were obviously brothers, because they were exactly alike), and Mrs. and Mr. Tressiter, two pleasant-faced, cheerful people, who sat very close together as though they were cold.

All these people shook hands agreeably with Peter, but made no remarks, and he stood awkwardly looking at the purple vases and wishing that something would happen.

Something did happen. The door was very softly and slowly opened, and a little woman came hurrying in. She had white hair, and glasses were dangling on the end of her nose, and she wore a very old and shabby black silk dress. She looked round with an agitated air.

“I don't know why it is,” she said, with a little chirrup, like a bird's, “but I'm always late—always!”

Then she did an amazing thing. She walked to the green settee and sat down between Miss Dall, the lady with the tight dress, and Mrs. Monogue. She then took out of one pocket an orange and out of another a piece of newspaper.

“I must have my orange, you know,” she said, looking gaily round on every one.

She spread the newspaper on her knee, and then peeled the orange very slowly and with great care. The silence was maintained—no one spoke. Then suddenly the Signor darted forward: “Oh, Mrs. Lazarus I must introduce you to Madame's new guest, Mr. Westcott.”

“How do you do?” the old lady chirruped, “Oh! but my fingers are all over orange—never mind, we'll smile at one another. I hope you'll like the place, I'm sure, I always have an orange before dinner. They've got used to me, you know. We've all got our little habits.”

Peter did not know what to say, and was wondering whether he ought to relieve the old lady of her orange peel (at which she was gazing rather helplessly), when a bell rang and Florence appeared at the door.

“Dinner!” she said, laconically.

A procession was formed, Mrs. Monogue, with her shawls sweeping behind her, sailed in front, and Peter brought up the rear. Mrs. Lazarus put the orange peel into the newspaper and placed it all carefully in her pocket.

Mrs. Brockett was sitting, more like a soldier than ever, at the head of the table. Mutton was in front of her, and there seemed to be nothing on the table cloth but cruets and three dusty and melancholic palms. Peter found that he was sitting between Mrs. Lazarus and Miss Dall, and that he was not expected to talk. It was apparent indeed that the regularity with which every one met every one at this hour of the day, during months and months of the year negatived any polite necessity of cordiality or genial spirits. When any one spoke it was crossly and in considerable irritation, and although the food was consumed with great eagerness on everybody's part, the faces of the company were obviously anxious to express the fact that the food was worse than ever, and they wouldn't stand it another minute. They all did stand it, however, and Peter thought that they were all, secretly, rather happy and contented. During most of the meal no one spoke to him, and as he was very hungry this did not matter. Opposite him, all down the side of the room, were dusty grey pillars, and between these pillars heavy dark green curtains were hanging. This had the effect of muffling and crushing the conversation and quite forbidding anybody to be cheerful in any circumstances. Mrs. Lazarus indeed chirruped along comfortably and happily for the most part to herself—as, for instance, “I am orangy, but then I was late and couldn't finish it. Dear me, it's mutton again. I really must tell Madame about it and there's nothing so nice as beef and Yorkshire pudding, is there? Dear me, would you mind, young man, just asking Dear Miss Dall to pass the salt spoon. She's left that behind. I have the salt-cellar, thank you.”

She also hummed to herself at times and made her bread into little hard pellets, which she flicked across the table with her thumb at no one in particular and in sheer absence of mind. The two Mr. Crumleys were sitting opposite to her, and they accepted the little charge of shot with all the placid equanimity bred of ancient custom.

Peter noticed other things. He noticed that Mrs. Monogue was an exceedingly ill-tempered and selfish woman, and that she bullied the pleasant girl with the untidy hair throughout the meal, and that the girl took it all in the easiest possible way. He noticed that Mrs. Brockett dealt with each of her company in turn—one remark apiece, and always in that stern, deep voice with the strangely beautiful musical note in it. To himself she said: “Well, Mr. Westcott, I'm pleased, I'm sure, that everything is to your satisfaction,” and listened gravely to his assurance. To Miss Dall: “Well, Miss Dall, I looked at the book you lent me and couldn't find any sense in it, I'm afraid.” To Mrs. Tressiter: “I had little Minnie with me for half an hour this evening, and I'm sure a better behaved child never breathed “. . . and so on.

Once Miss Dall turned upon him sharply with: “I suppose you never go and hear the Rev. Mr. M. J. Valdwell?” and Peter had to confess ignorance.

“Really! Well, it 'ud do you young men a world of good.”

He assured her that he would go.

“I will lend you a volume of his sermons if you would care to read them.”

Peter said that he would be delighted. The meal was soon over, and every one returned to the sitting-room. They sat about in a desolate way, and Peter discovered afterwards that Mrs. Brockett liked every one to be there together for half an hour to encourage friendly relations. That object could scarcely be said to be achieved, because there was very little conversation and many anxious glances were flung at the clocks. Mrs. Brockett, however, sat sternly in a chair and sewed, and no one ventured to leave the room.

One pleasant thing happened. Peter was standing by the window turning over some fashion papers of an ancient date, when he saw that Miss Monogue was at his elbow. Now that she was close to him he observed that she looked thin and delicate; her dress was worn and old-fashioned, she looked as though she ought to be wrapped up warmly and taken care of—but her eyes were large and soft and grey, and although her wrists looked strangely white and sharp through her black dress her hands were beautiful. Her voice was soft with an Irish brogue lingering pleasantly amongst her words:

“I hope that you will like being here.”

“I'm sure I shall,” he said, smiling. He felt grateful to her for talking to him.

“You're very fortunate to have come to Mrs. Brockett's straight away. You mayn't think so now, because Mrs. Brockett is alarming at first, and we none of us—” she locked round her with a little laugh—“can strike the onlooker as very cheerful company. But really Madame has a heart of gold—you'll find that out in time. She's had a terribly hard time of it herself, and I believe it's a great struggle to keep things going now. But she's helped all kinds of people in her time.”

Peter looked, with new eyes, at the lady so sternly sewing.

“You don't know,” Miss Monogue went on in her soft, pleasant voice, “how horrible these boarding-houses can be. Mother and I have tried a good many. But here people stay for ever—a pretty good testimony to it, I think . . . and then, you know, she never lets any one stay here if she doesn't like them—so that prevents scoundrels. There've been one or two, but she's always found them out. . . and I believe she keeps old Mrs. Lazarus quite free of charge.”

She paused, and then she added:

“And there's no one here who hasn't found life pretty hard. That gives us a kind of freemasonry, you know. The Tressiters, for instance, they have three children, and he has been out of work for months—sometimes there's such a frightened look in her eyes . . . but you mustn't think that we're melancholy here,” she went on more happily. “We get a lot of happiness out of it all.”

He looked at her, and remembering Mrs. Monogue at dinner and seeing now how delicate the girl looked, thought that she must have a very considerable amount of pluck on her own account.

“And you?” she said. “Have you only just come up to London?”

“Yes,” he answered, “I'm in a bookseller's shop—a second-hand bookseller's. I've only been in London a few days—it's all very exciting for me—and a little confusing at present.”

“I'm sure you'll get on,” she said. “You look so strong and confident and happy. I envy you your strength—one can do so much if one's got that.”

He felt almost ashamed of his rough suit, his ragged build. “Well, I've always been in the country,” he said, a little apologetically, “I expect London will change that.”

Then there came across the room Mrs. Monogue's sharp voice. “Norah! Norah! I want you.”

She left him.

That night in his little room, he looked from his window at the sea of black roofs that stretched into the sky and found in their ultimate distance the wonderful sweep of stars that domed them; a great moon, full-rounded, dull gold, staring like a huge eye, above them. His heart was full. A God there must be somewhere to have given him all this splendour—a splendour surely for him to work upon. He felt as a craftsman feels, when some new and wonderful tools have been given to him; as a woman feels the child in her womb, stirring mysteriously, moving her to deep and glad thankfulness, so now, with the night wind blowing about him, and all London lying, dark and motionless, below him, he felt the first stirring of his power. This was his to work with, this was his to praise and glorify and make beautiful—now crude and formless—a seed dark and without form or colour—one day to make one more flower in that garden that God has given his servants to work in.

He did not, at this instant, doubt that some God was there, crying to him, and that he must answer. Of that moon, of those stars, of that mighty city, he would make one little stone that might be added to that Eternal Temple of Beauty. . . .

He turned from his window and thought of other things. He thought of his father and Scaw House, of the windy day when his mother was buried, of Mr. Zanti and Stephen's letter, of Herr Gottfried and his blue slippers, of this house and its people, of the friendly girl and her grey eyes . . . finally, for a little, of himself—of his temper and his ambitions and his selfishness. Here, indeed, suddenly jumping out at him, was the truth.

He felt, as he got into bed, that he would have to change a great deal if he were to write that great book that he thought of: “Little Peter Westcott.” London seemed to say, “there's lots to be done to you first before you're worth anything . . . I'll batter at you.”

Well, let it, he thought, sleepily. There was nothing that he would like better. He tumbled into sleep, with London after him, and Fame in front of him, and a soft and resonant murmur, as of a slumbering giant, rising to his open window.