The Whirlpool. George Gissing
gives me something to do, and it takes me out into the open air. This beastly town is the ruin of me, in every way.—Come to my rooms for an hour, will you? I'll show you some attempts; I've only just tried my hand at developing. And it's a long time since we had a talk.'
They made for a Chelsea omnibus and mounted.
'I thought you were never in town at this time,' Morphew resumed. 'I want to get away, but can't afford it; devilish low-water with me. I must have a bicycle. With that and the camera I may just manage to live; often there seems little enough to live for.—Tripcony? Oh, Tripcony's a damned swindler; I've given him up. Speculation isn't quite so simple as I imagined. I made a couple of hundred, though—yes, and lost nearly three.'
The young man's laugh was less pleasant to hear than formerly. Altogether, Rolfe observed in him a decline, a loss of refinement as well as of vitality.
'Why don't you go into the country?' he said. 'Take a cottage and grow cabbages; dig for three hours a day. It would do you no end of good.'
'Of course it would. I wish I had the courage.'
'I'm going to spend the winter in Wales,' said Harvey. 'An out-of-the-world place in Carnarvonshire—mountains and sea. Come along with me, and get the mephitis blown out of you. You've got town disease, street-malaria, lodging-house fever.'
'By Jove, I'll think of it,' replied the other, with a strange look of eagerness. 'But I don't know whether I can. No, I can't be sure. But I'll try.'
'What holds you?'
'Well, I like to be near, you know, to her. And then—all sorts of difficulties–'
Morphew had his lodgings at present in a street near Chelsea Hospital, a poor-looking place, much inferior to those in which Rolfe had formerly seen him. His two rooms were at the top, and he had converted a garret into a dark chamber for his photographic amusement. Dirt and disorder made the sitting-room very uninviting; Rolfe looked about him, and wondered what principle of corruption was at work in the young man's life.
Morphew showed a new portrait of his betrothed, Henrietta Winter; a comely face, shadowed with pensiveness. 'Taken at Torquay; she sent it a day or two ago.—I've been thinking of giving her up. If I do, I shall do it brutally and savagely, to make it easy for her. I've spoilt her life, and I'm pretty sure I've ruined my own.'
He brought out a bottle of whisky and half filled two tumblers. His own measure he very slightly diluted, and drank it off at once.
'You're at a bad pass, my boy,' remarked Rolfe. 'What's wrong? Something more than usual, I know. Make a clean breast of it.'
Morphew continued to declare that he was only low-spirited from the longstanding causes, and, though Rolfe did not believe him, nothing more could at present be elicited. The talk turned to photography, but still had no life in it.
'I think you had better dine with me this evening,' said Harvey.
'Impossible. I wish I could. An engagement.'
The young man shuffled about, and after a struggle with embarrassment, aided by another tumbler of whisky, threw out something he wished to say.
'It's deuced hard to ask you, but—could you lend me some money?'
'Of course. How much? Why do you make such a sputter about it?'
'I've been making a fool of myself—got into difficulties. Will you let me have fifty pounds?'
'Yes, if you'll promise to clear at once out of this dust-bin, and in a month or so come into Wales.'
'You're an awfully good fellow, Rolfe,—and I'm a damned fool. I promise! I will! I'll get out of it, and then I'll think about breaking with that girl. Better for both of us—but you shall advise me.– I'll tell you everything some day. I can't now. I'm too ashamed of myself.'
When he got home, Harvey wrote a cheque for fifty pounds, and posted it at once.
Not many days after, there came to him a letter from Mrs. Frothingham. With this lady he had held no communication since the catastrophe of last November; knowing not how to address her without giving more pain than his sympathy could counterbalance, he remained silent. She wrote from the neighbourhood of Swiss Cottage, where she had taken a flat; it was her wish, if possible, to see him 'on a matter of business', and she requested that he would make an appointment. Much wondering in what business of Mrs. Frothingham's he could be concerned, Harvey named his time, and went to pay the call. He ascended many stairs, and was conducted by a neat servant-maid into a pleasant little drawing-room, where Mrs. Frothingham rose to receive him. She searched his face, as if to discern the feeling with which he regarded her, and her timid smile of reassurance did not lack its pathos.
'Mr. Rolfe, it seems years since I saw you.'
She was aged a little, and her voice fell in broken notes, an unhappy contrast to the gay, confident chirping of less than twelve months ago.
'I have only been settled here for a week. I thought of leaving London altogether, but, after all, I had to come backwards and forwards so often,—it was better to have a home here, and this little flat will just suit me, I think.'
She seemed desirous of drawing attention to its modest proportions.
'I really don't need a house, and lodgings are so wretched. These flats are a great blessing—don't you think? I shall manage here with one servant, only one.'
Rolfe struggled with the difficulty of not knowing what to say. There was nothing for it but to discourse as innocently as might be on the advantages of flats, their increasing popularity, and the special charms of this particular situation. Mrs. Frothingham eagerly agreed with everything, and did her best to allow no moment of silence.
'You have heard from Miss Frothingham, I think?' she presently let fall, with a return of anxiety.
'Not very long ago. From Leipzig.'
'Yes. Yes.—I don't know whether she will stay there. You know she is thinking of taking up music professionally?—Yes. Yes.—I do so hope she will find it possible, but of course that kind of career is so very uncertain. I'm not sure that I shouldn't be glad if she turned to something else.'
The widow was growing nervous and self-contradictory. With a quick movement of her hands, she suddenly resumed in another tone.
'Mr. Rolfe, I do so wish you would let me speak to you in confidence. I want to ask your help in a most delicate matter. Not, of course, about my step-daughter, though I shall have to mention her. It is something quite personal to myself. If I could hope that you wouldn't think it tiresome—I have a special reason for appealing to you.'
He would gladly, said Harvey, be of any use he could.
'I want to speak to you about painful things,' pursued his hostess, with an animation and emphasis which made her more like the lady of Fitzjohn Avenue. 'You know everything—except my own position, and that is what I wish to explain to you. I won't go into details. I will only say that a few years ago my husband made over to me a large sum of money—I had none of my own—and that it still belongs to me. I say belongs to me; but there is my trouble. I fear I have no right whatever to call it mine. And there are people who have suffered such dreadful losses. Some of them you know. There was a family named Abbott. I wanted to ask you about them. Poor Mr. Abbott—I remember reading–'
She closed her eyes for an instant, and the look upon her face told that this was no affectation of an anguished memory.
'It was accident,' Rolfe hastened to say. 'The jury found it accidental death.'
'But there was the loss—I read it all. He had lost everything. Do tell me what became of his family. Someone told me they were friends of yours.'
'Happily they had no children. There was a small life-insurance. Mrs Abbott used to be a teacher, and she is going to take that up again.'
'Poor thing! Is she quite young?'
'Oh, about thirty, I should say.'
'Will she go into a school?'
'No. Private pupils at her own house. She has plenty of courage, and will do