The Cruise of the Make-Believes. Gallon Tom
were in a dreadful conspiracy with it to let down any unwary mortal who should attempt to sit upon them in their old age, unless he treated them with due caution and respect.
Nor was this all; the garden held other treasures. Another ancient strip of carpet, as ragged as its fellow, had been hung against a wall to form a species of background to a crazy box that stood against that wall. Not that you would ever have called it a box; it had a dingy rug upon it, and that dingy rug made it, of course, a species of settle or ottoman – an easy lounging place on summer nights. You had to sit down carefully upon it, because it had a defective board, which gave way unexpectedly and might let you through; but with care that was a fault that might not be noticed. For the rest, the place contained a bulky old plaster flower-pot, with some seedy-looking moss growing in it, and with great cracks at the further side from the house.
The kindly darkness was hiding the tawdriness of the place when a little door at the end of the garden opened, and a little man came in. A man shabby like all the place; with an old frock-coat much too large for him hanging in scarecrow fashion from his thin shoulders, with trousers much too long for him lapping over carpet slippers frayed and worn, and with an old velvet smoking-cap, with three strands of frayed silk to represent a tassel, stuck on one side of his head. A melancholy-looking little man, with a certain fierce sullenness upon him, as though he quarrelled perpetually with the world at large. He slammed the gate, and advanced into that sorry garden; made as if to kick the unwieldy cracked flower-pot, but thought better of it; and went shambling towards the table set upon the ragged carpet.
The fact that he caught his foot in a hole in the carpet, and almost precipitated himself over the table, did not improve his temper. He glared savagely about him, and gave his head a fierce rub with his cap before seating himself gingerly on one of the chairs. Having done so, he pulled his frock-coat closer about him, and shivered in the warm and stifling air.
"It's a conspiracy – that's what it is!" exclaimed the little man. "It's an infernal conspiracy against me from first to last!"
The shadows were lengthening in the garden, and the little man was rather a pathetic figure as he sat there, solemnly shaking his head and muttering to himself. Someone who had come to the back door of the house, and looked out upon him, hesitated for a moment, and then stepped quickly out towards him. A young girl with a bright, eager, thin face; the girl who had looked through the window at Mr. Jordan Tant. She came quickly towards the man, and dropped her arm round his shoulders, and whispered to him.
"Father – you're home quite early," she said. "Will you have your coffee out here?"
He shook himself peevishly away from her embrace. "Coffee?" he exclaimed. "Who the devil wants coffee, Bessie? A man wants something stronger than coffee. Besides – what's the good of making a fuss about my being home as early as this? You don't suppose I should have come home but for a very good reason – do you?"
The girl winced a little, and drew away from him. "I thought perhaps for once you were glad to come home, father," she said timidly. "And you know I always like to think of us sitting out in the garden – under the stars – and drinking our coffee. The best people do that every night of their lives – after dinner."
"After dinner!" he reminded her, raising a finger, and shaking it at her. "That makes all the difference in the world; I dare say anyone might drink the stuff after a good dinner – just to oblige a friend. But what is anyone to do – in what condition of mind do you imagine a man to be – when his dinner has been a thing not of the stalled ox order – but of herbs? Besides – I'm upset – annoyed."
"I'm sorry, father," said the girl softly. She tiptoed into the house, and softly called to someone within; came out again, and sat down at the further side of the table, folding her hands upon it, and looking at the shabby figure of the man on the other side of it.
"What has gone wrong, dear?" she whispered; and at the question he suddenly turned upon her, and opened the very floodgates of his wrath and misery.
"Turned out – ejected – thrust to the door with gibes and laughter!" he exclaimed. "For how many years have I not, in a sense, been the very prop and stay of that place – its chief ornament – the one being who in an impoverished and sordid neighbourhood has shed upon it the light of what I may term real intellect. I ask you, Bessie – for how many years?"
"For more years than I can remember, father," whispered the girl, turning away her head.
"Exactly," he responded triumphantly. "It has been to me not a mere house of refreshment – but a club – a place in which, by virtue of long usage, I had a species of proprietary right. They'll find their mistake out, of course; they're bound to do that in time. The Arcadia Arms without me degenerates into a mere low public-house – a pot-house; I had succeeded in raising the place. I was a feature – almost an institution. And now a vulgar creature – without a coat, mark you, Bessie! – points to the door, and says that I'm not to be served again. Some talk of a score – of a paltry sum that should have been paid long since."
There was silence between them for a minute; it seemed as if, in the gathering darkness, the petty record of the years was being told over between them – so much to this account, and so much to that. The man in the shabby frock-coat seemed to shrink and dwindle – to fall away from what he would have appeared in her eyes, and to be the mean thing he really was. When presently he went on with his tale, it was as though he sought for excuses for himself, and blamed her in so doing.
"That place was in a sense my last refuge; I held a position there I hold nowhere else now. When the cares of the world pressed upon me more than usual, I was able to turn there; I had my seat in a special corner – and I was respected. It was known always and everywhere as 'Mr. Meggison's place'; and only once in all the years has it been usurped – and then the man was drunk. He was very properly turned out at once, of course, and made to understand the enormity of his offence. And now – now, Bessie" – he turned to the girl, and feebly smote the crazy table with his fist – "now they tell me I am not to go there again – they turn me out; I heard them laugh when the door banged behind me. Oh – a bitter world – a very bitter world, Bessie!"
In all that he said she knew that there was an implied reproach for herself. For if Bessie Meggison had but passed into his hands certain shillings, this might never have happened; he might still have held up his head at the Arcadia Arms – still have filled his old seat in a corner – still have called like a man for his glass to be filled. In that Bessie had failed; and she knew it now.
"We have had a hard time, father," she said, dropping a light hand on the fist with which he was beating the table. "People don't come and take the lodgings as they used to do; the things are getting so poor and shabby that perhaps the more fashionable young men don't like it. I try hard, father – but every shilling seems to be so important."
"My dear Bessie, I am not aware that I have blamed you," he said a little coldly, as he withdrew his hand and turned away his head. "Time was when Fortune smiled upon me, and I was able to do work that brought in money; that time is long since past. In a fashion, I may be said to have retired; I am no longer actively engaged in commercial pursuits."
"No, father – of course not," responded the girl cheerfully.
"And you have often assured me that you are glad – and proud – glad and proud to be able to assist my declining years. It is not much that I want: I saunter out in the sun in the morning, and go down to my – my club – "
"The Arcadia Arms, father," she said gently.
"I prefer to call it my club," he said, a little testily. "There I nod to an acquaintance or two – and I have my modest glass, and perhaps smoke a pipe, or even a mild cigar. In the afternoon, a stroll and perhaps another modest glass; in the evening a few more people gather there, and we are almost convivial. That's my programme; that's my day. For the rest, as you're aware, I occupy the cheapest bed in the house – and I don't eat much. Therefore I do urge," he concluded fretfully, "that it is a shame that a man should be deprived of the little thing that gives him so much pleasure. I have been wounded to-night – sorely hurt and wounded, Bessie."
"The coffee will be here directly, father," said the girl.
"Coffee – served