The Record of Nicholas Freydon Part 18

said Mabel gaily.

'No, I mustn't stay,' I replied, with Spartan firmness. And then, on a sudden impulse: 'Don't you think we've both been rather mistaken, Mabel? I've been silly and presumptuous, because, of course, I'm n.o.body--just a penniless newspaper reporter. And you--you are very dear and sweet, and will soon marry some one who can give you a house like this, in Potts Point. I--I've all my way to make yet, and--and so I'd like to say good-bye. And--thank you ever so much for always having been so sweet and so patient. Good-bye!'

'Why? Aren't you--Won't you--Good-bye then!'

And so I pa.s.sed out; and, having quite relinquished any thought of reprisals, I believe perhaps I did, after all, bring a momentary twinge of remorse to pretty, giddy Mabel Foster. I never saw her again but once, and that as a mere acquaintance, and when almost a year had pa.s.sed.

XX

I have no idea what made me fix upon the particular sum of two hundred pounds as the amount of capital required for my migration oversea to England; but that was the figure I had in mind. At the time it seemed that the decision to go home--England is still regularly spoken of as 'home' by tens of thousands of British subjects who never have set eyes upon its sh.o.r.es, and are not acquainted with any living soul in the British Isles--came to me after that eventful afternoon at Potts Point. And as a definite decision, with anything like a date in view, perhaps it did not come till then. But the tendency in that direction had been present for a long while.

It would seem, however, that at every period of my life I have always been feeding upon some one predominant plan, desire, or objective. For many months prior to that afternoon at Potts Point, my adoration of Mabel Foster had overshadowed all else, and made me most unusually careless of other interests. This preoccupation having come to an abrupt end was succeeded almost immediately by the fixed determination to go to England as soon as I could acquire the sum of two hundred pounds. Into the pursuit then of this sum of money I now plunged with considerable vehemence.

As a matter of fact, I suppose the task of putting together a couple of hundred pounds, in London say, would be a pretty considerable one for a youngster without family or influence. It was not a hard one for me, in Sydney. I might probably have possessed the amount at this very time, but for my single period of extravagance--the time of devotion to Miss Foster. Putting aside the vagaries of that period, I saved money automatically. Mere living and journeying to and from the office cost me less than a pound each week. My pleasures cost less than half that amount all told; and as one outcome of my year's extravagance, I was now handsomely provided for in the matter of clothes.

But I will not pretend that h.o.a.rding for the great adventure of going to England did not involve some small sacrifices. It did. To take one trifle now. I had formed a habit of dropping into a restaurant, Quong Tart's by name, for a cup of afternoon tea each day; in the first place because I had heard Mabel Foster speak of going there for the same purpose with her friend Hester Prinsep. Abstention from this dissipation now added a few weekly s.h.i.+llings to the great adventure fund. To the same end I gave up cigarettes, confining myself to the one foul old briar pipe. And there were other such minor abstinences, all designed to increase the weight of the envelope I handed across the bank counter each week.

The disadvantages of the habit of making life a consecutive series of absorbing preoccupations are numerous. The practice narrows the sphere of one's interests and activities, tends to introspective egoism, and robs the present of much of its savour. But, now and again, it has its compensations. Save for a single week-end of rather pensive moping, the end of my love affair changed the colour of my outlook but very little indeed. Its place was promptly filled, or very nearly filled, by the other preoccupation. And, keen though I was about this, I did not in any sense become an ascetic youth held down by stern resolves.

I think I rather enjoyed the small sacrifices and the steady saving; and I know I very much enjoyed applying for and obtaining another small increase of salary, after completing a trumpery series of sketches of pleasure resorts near Sydney, the publication of which brought substantial profit to the _Chronicle_.

One thing that did rather hurt me at this time was a comment made upon myself, and accidentally overheard by me in the reporters' room at the office. This was a remark made by an American newspaper man, who, having been a month or two on the staff, was dismissed for drunkenness. He spoke in a penetrating nasal tone as I approached the open door of the room, and what he said to his unknown companion came as such a buffet in the face to me that I turned and walked away. The words I heard were:

'Freydon? Oh yes; clever, in his ten cent way. I allow the chap's honest, mind, but, sakes alive, he's only what a N'York thief would call a "sure thing grafter."'

The phrase was perfectly unfamiliar to me, but intuitively I knew exactly what it meant, and I suppose it hurt because I felt its applicability. A 'sure thing grafter' was a criminal who took no chances, I felt; an adventurer who played for petty stakes only, because he would face no risks. Even the American pressman knew I was no criminal. He probably would have despised me less if he thought I stole. But--there it was. The chance shaft went home. And it hurt.

I dare say there was considerable pettiness about the way in which I saved my earnings instead of squandering them with glad youthfulness, as did most of my colleagues. There was something of the huckster's instinct, no doubt, in many of the trivial journalistic ideas I evolved, took to my chief, and pleased my employers by carrying out successfully. I suppose these were the petty ways by which I managed somehow to clamber out of the position in which my father's death had left me. They are set down here because they certainly were a part of my life. I am not ashamed of them, but I do wonder at them rather as a part of my life; not at all as something beneath me, but as something suggesting the possession of a kind of commercial gift for 'getting on,' of which my after life gave little or no indication. In all my youth there was undoubtedly a marked absence of the care-free jollity, the irresponsible joyousness, which is supposed to belong naturally to youth. This was not due, I think, to the mere fact of my being left alone in the world as a child. We have all met urchins joyous in the most abject dest.i.tution. I attribute it to two causes: inherited temperamental tendencies, and the particular circ.u.mstances in which I happened to be left alone in the world. Had I been born in a slum, and subsequently left an orphan there; or had my father's death occurred half a dozen years earlier than it did; in either case my circ.u.mstances would, I apprehend, have influenced me far less.

As things were with me when I found myself in the ranks of the friendless and penniless, I had formed certain definite tastes and a.s.sociations, the influence of which was such as to make me earnestly anxious to get away from that strata of the community which my companions at St. Peter's Orphanage, for example, accepted unquestioningly as their own. Now when a youngster in his early teens is possessed by an earnest desire of that sort, I suppose it is not likely to stimulate irresponsible gaiety and carelessness in him.

But, withal, I enjoyed those Sydney years; yes, I savoured the life of that period with unfailing zest. But, incidents of the type which dear old Mrs. Gabbitas called 'Awful warnings,' were for me more real, more impressive, than they are to youths who live in comfortably luxurious homes, and know the care of mother and sisters. The normal youth is naturally not often moved to the vein of--'There, but for the grace of G.o.d, goes ---- etc.' But I was, inevitably.

For instance, there was the American journalist who so heartily despised my bourgeois prudence and progress. As I walked through the Domain one evening, not many months after I had heard myself compared with a 'sure thing grafter,' I saw a piece of human wreckage curled up under a tree in the moonlight. It was not a very infrequent sight of course, even in prosperous Sydney, This particular wreck, as he lay sleeping there, exposed the fact that he wore neither s.h.i.+rt nor socks.

He was dreadfully filthy, and his stertorous breathing gave a clue to the cause of his degradation. As I drew level with him, the moon shone full on his stubble-grown face. He was the American reporter.

Here was a chance to return good for evil. I might have done several quite picturesque things, and did think of leaving a coin beside the poor wretch. Then I pictured its inevitable destination, and impatiently asked myself why sentimentality should carry money of mine into public-house tills. So I pa.s.sed on. Finally, after walking a hundred yards, I retraced my steps and slid half a crown under the man's grimy hand, where it lay limply on the gra.s.s.

XXI

The work that gave me most satisfaction at this time was writing of a kind which I could not induce my chief to favour for his own purposes.

He said it was not sufficiently 'legitimate journalism' for the _Chronicle_. (The 'eighties were still young.) And only at long intervals was I able to persuade him to accept one or two examples, though I insisted it was the best work I had ever attempted for the paper; as, indeed, it very likely was.

'But this is practically a story,' or 'This is really fiction,' or 'This is a sketch of a personal character, not a newspaper feature,'

he would say. And then, one day, in handing me back one of my rejected offspring, he said: 'Look here, Freydon, see if you can condense this a shade, and then send it to the editor of the _Observer_. I've written him saying I should tell you this.'

I followed this kindly advice, and, a month later, enjoyed the profound satisfaction of reading my little contribution in the famous Australian weekly journal. The fact would have no interest for any one else, of course, but I have always remembered this little sketch of a type of Australian bushman, because it was the first signed contribution from my pen to appear in any journal of standing; the first of a series which appeared perhaps once in a month during the rest of my time in Sydney.

People I met in Mr. Rawlence's studio occasionally mentioned these sketches, and I took great pleasure in them. Incidentally, they added to my h.o.a.rd at the bank. Mr. Smith, my room-mate at North Sh.o.r.e, had hitherto regarded my newspaper work strictly from a business standpoint; judging it solely by the salary it brought. Suddenly now I found I had touched an unsuspected vein of his character. He was surprisingly pleased about these signed _Observer_ sketches. This was authors.h.i.+p, he said; and he spoke to every one, with most kindly pride, of his young friend's work.

My account at the savings bank touched the desired two hundred pounds mark, when I had been just three years and nine months in Sydney. I decided to add to it until I had completed my fourth year; and, meantime, made inquiries about the pa.s.sage to England. From this point on I made no secret of my intentions, and a very kindly reply came from Mrs. Perkins in Dursley to the letter in which I told her of my plan. At a venture I addressed a letter to Ted, my old friend of _Livorno_ days; but it brought no answer. Neither had the letter of nearly four years earlier, in which his loan of one pound had been returned with warm thanks.

The months slipped by, and the fourth anniversary of my start in Sydney arrived; and still I postponed from day to day the final step of resigning my appointment, and booking my pa.s.sage. I cannot explain this at all, for I had become more and more eager for the adventure with every pa.s.sing month. I do not think timidity restrained me. No, I fancy a kind of epicurean pleasure in the hourly consciousness that I was able now to take the step so soon as I chose induced me to prolong the savouring of it; just as I have sometimes found myself deliberately refraining for hours, and even for a day or so, from opening a parcel of books which I have desired and looked forward to enjoying for some time previously.

The awakening from this sort of epicurean dalliance was, as the event proved, somewhat sharp and abrupt.

I did presently resign my post and engage my second-cla.s.s berth in the mail steamer _Orion_. Upon this reservation I paid a deposit of twenty pounds; and it seemed that when my pa.s.sage had been fully paid, and one or two other necessary expenses met, I might still have my two hundred pounds intact to carry with me to England.

Thus I felt that I was handsomely provided for; and, upon the whole, I think the average person who has reached middle life, at all events, would find it easy to regard with understanding tolerance the fact that I was rather proud of what I had accomplished. It really was something, all the attendant circ.u.mstances being taken into account.

But, perhaps, it is not always safe to trust too implicitly in the genial old faith that Providence helps those who help themselves; though the complementary theory, that Providence does not help those who do not help themselves, may be pretty generally correct. Maybe I was too complaisant. (If I have a superst.i.tion to-day, it is that a jealous Nemesis keeps vengeful watch upon human complaisance.)

On a certain Thursday morning, and in a mood of some elation, I walked into the bank to close my account. The amount was two hundred and forty-seven pounds ten s.h.i.+llings. Of this some twenty-five pounds was destined to complete the payment that morning of my pa.s.sage money. The cas.h.i.+er was able to furnish me with Bank of England notes for two hundred pounds, and the balance, for convenience and ready-money, I drew in Australian notes and gold. Never before having handled at one time a greater sum than, say, five-and-twenty pounds, it was with a sense of being a good deal of a capitalist that I b.u.t.toned my coat as I emerged from the bank, and set out for the s.h.i.+pping-office. The sun shone warmly. My arrangements were all completed. I was going home.

Yes, it was with something of an air, no doubt, that I took the pavement, humming as I pa.s.sed along the bright side of Pitt Street.

All my life I have had a fondness for byways. Main thoroughfares between the two great arteries, Pitt and George Street, were at my service; but I preferred a narrow alley which brings one to the back premises of Messrs. Hunt and Carton's, the wholesale stationers.

Bearing to the left through that firm's stableyard, one pa.s.ses through a little arched opening which debouches upon Tinckton Street, whence in twenty paces one reaches George Street at a point close to the office for which I was bound.

I can see now the sleek-sided lorry horses in Hunt and Carton's yard, and I recall precisely the odour of the place as I pa.s.sed through it that morning; the heavy, flat wads of blue-wrapped paper, and the fluttering bits of straw; the stamp of a draught horse's foot on cobble-stones. I saw the black, clean-cut shadow of the arched place. I turned half round to note the cause of a soft sound behind me. And just then came the dull roar of a detonation, in the same instant that a huge weight crashed upon me, and I fell down, down, down into the very bowels of the earth....

'No actual danger, I think. Excuse me, nurse!'

Those were the first words I heard. The first I spoke, I believe, were:

'I suppose the arch collapsed?'

'Ah! To be sure, yes. There was quite a collapse, wasn't there?' said some one blandly. 'However, you're all right now. Just open your mouth a little, please. That's right. Better? Ah! H'm! Yes, there's bound to be pain in the head; but we'll soon have that a bit easier.'

After that, it seemed to me that I began to take some kind of warm drink, and to talk almost at once. As a fact, I believe there was another somnolent interval of an hour or so before I did actually reach this stage of taking refreshment and asking questions. It was then late evening, and I was in bed in the Sydney Hospital. There had been no earthquake, nor yet even the collapse of an archway. Nothing at all, in fact, except that I had been smitten over the head with an iron bar. There had been two blows, I believe; and, if so, the second must really have been a work of supererogation, for I was conscious only of the one crash.

In one illuminating instant I recalled my visit to the bank, my two hundred and forty-seven pounds ten s.h.i.+llings, my intended visit to the s.h.i.+pping-office, the approaching end and climax of my work in Sydney and Dursley--six years of it.

'Nurse,' I said, with sudden, low urgency, 'will you please see if my pocket-book is in my coat?'

'Everything is taken out of patients' pockets and locked up for safety,' she said.

'Well, will you please inquire what amount of money was taken from my pockets, nurse. It's--it's rather important,' I told her.

The nurse urged the importance of my not thinking of business just now; but after a few more words she went out, gave some one a message, and, returning, said my matter would be seen to at once.

It seemed to me that a very long time pa.s.sed. My head was full of a tremendous ache. But my thoughts were active, and full of gloomy foreboding. Just as I was about to make another appeal to the nurse, the doctor came bustling down the ward with another man, a plain clothes policeman, I thought, with recollection of sundry newspaper reporting experiences. The surmise was correct. The doctor had a look at my head--his fingers were furnished apparently with red-hot steel p.r.o.ngs--and held my right wrist between his fingers. The police officer sat down heavily beside the bed, drew out a s.h.i.+ny-covered note-book, and began, in an astoundingly deep voice, to ask me laboriously futile questions.

'Look here!' I said, after a few minutes, 'this is all very well, but would you be kind enough to tell me what money was found in my pockets?'

'Two sovereigns, one half sovereign, seven s.h.i.+llings in silver, and tuppence in bronze,' said the sepulchral policeman, as though he thought 'tuppence' was usually 'in' marble, or _lignum vitae_, or something of the sort. 'Also one silver watch with leather guard, one plated cigarette-case, and----'