The Sailor Part 46

"Goodness gracious me!" Mr. Rudge was never moved to this objurgation except under duress of very high emotion. "Goodness gracious me ...

why, she's not respectable!"

"Beg your pardon, sir, but there you are wrong." The young man addressed his master with an independence and a dignity that twenty-four hours ago would not have been possible. "Cora is quite respectable and ... and Cora's a lady. If there's those who think otherwise, it's my fault for ... for compromising her." To Mrs. Henry Harper belonged the credit for the word "compromising," although it was worthy of W. M. Thackeray himself.

"Goodness gracious me!" Mr. Rudge mopped his face with a profuse red handkerchief. "Didn't I most strongly warn you against her when I found her that morning in the shop?"

"You have never once mentioned Cora to me, sir," said Henry Harper respectfully. "And I'm very glad you haven't, because a great wrong's been done her."

"Didn't I tell you she was up to no good, and that you had better be careful?"

"No, sir, you never said a single word to me."

"I certainly meant to do so ... but that's my unfortunate memory. I remember I had Charles XII. of Sweden in my head at the time; practically three hundred pages of Volume x.x.xIII. But it's no excuse.

I'll never be able to forgive myself for not having warned you. It's a pity she's Mrs. Greaves' niece, but I'm as sure as Tilly sacked Magdeburg that that girl Cora is not respectable."

"You are quite mistaken in that, sir," said Henry Harper, with a dignity of an entirely new kind, "because she is now my wife."

"I beg your pardon, Henry." Mr. Rudge had begun to realize that he was letting his tongue run away with him. "I'd forgotten that. I dare say I have been misinformed."

"Yes, sir, I am quite sure of that. You have no idea how careful she is in that way. It is because she is so careful that I've married her."

"Goodness gracious me!" said Mr. Rudge.

"She is most particular. And so are all her lady friends. And it's because I've been going to her flat and getting her talked about and going to the Coliseum with her, that I thought I ought to act the gentleman."

"Goodness gracious me! I wouldn't have had this happen for a thousand pounds."

"I wouldn't, either, sir," said Henry Harper.

XVI

When, at the instance of the lady who was now his wife, the young man removed his few belongings to No. 106, King John's Mansions, his first feeling was that he had entered quite a different world. He was very sorry to leave Mr. Rudge, who had been a true friend and to whom he had become deeply attached. Also he was sorry to leave that comfortable sitting-room with all its a.s.sociations of profitable labor which embodied by far the best hours his life had known. As for the books in the shop, he would miss them dreadfully.

It was a wrench to leave these things. But at the call of duty it had to be. Cora regarded the change as inevitable, and she saw that it was made at once. From the very hour of their marriage, she took absolute charge of him. It was due to her infinitely greater knowledge of life and of the world that one who was so much a child in these matters should defer to her in everything. He was expected to do as he was told, and for the most part he was perfectly willing to fulfil that obligation.

Almost the first question she asked him, as soon as they were man and wife, was what he had done with the check for three hundred pounds?

Her highly developed business instinct regarded it as more or less satisfactory, that at the suggestion of Mr. Rudge he had opened an account at a bank. It was a very sensible thing to have done, but it would be even more sensible if the money was paid over to her. She also felt that all sums he earned in the future should be banked in her name. There were many advantages in such a course. In the first place, only one banking account would be necessary, and she always favored simplicity in matters of business. Again, their money would be much safer with her: she understood its value far better than he.

Again, it would be wise if she made all financial arrangements; a man who had his head full of writing would naturally not want to be bothered with such tiresome things, and he would have the more time to use his pen.

These arguments were so logical that Harry felt their force. There was no doubt that Cora's head was much better than his. Besides, as she said, with a penetration which was flattering, he lived in a world of his own, and she was quite sure he ought not to be worried by things of that kind.

Up to a point, this was true. The world Henry Harper lived in at present was largely of his own creation; and he was content that the wife he had married should take these trite burdens from his shoulders.

Moreover, at first he did not regret Mr. Rudge and the old privacy as much as he thought he would. Cora was by no means deficient in common sense, and having had what she knew was a great stroke of luck, she determined to show herself worthy of it by doing her best "to settle down."

There was prudence and wisdom in this. Mrs. Henry Harper had been a scholar in a very hard school, and she now hoped to profit by its teaching. Therefore, she tried all she knew to make the young man comfortable, not merely because she liked him as much as it was possible for her to like any man, but also for the more practical reason that he might begin to like her.

At first his work, which meant so much more to him than ever Cora could, suffered far less than he had feared. To be sure, he missed the books terribly. He had not realized the value of those serried rows in the shop until the time had come to do without them. But Mr. Rudge, in saying good-by to him with distress in his honest eyes, had promised that the run of the shelves should always be his.

Now there was no longer the bookshop to look after, he had more time for reading and writing, and for gaining general knowledge. Also Cora had the wisdom to trouble him little. She stayed in bed most of the morning, and as Royal Daylight had strict instructions to walk delicately in going about her household duties, Henry Harper with his habit of rising early was always able to count on a long and uninterrupted morning's work.

In the afternoon, Cora generally went forth to visit her friends. And as she showed no desire for Harry to accompany her, there were so many more precious hours in which he could do as he liked, in which his fancy could expand. In the evening, however, his trials began. After the first few days of matrimony, Cora developed a pa.s.sion for restaurants, whither she expected him to accompany her. As a rule they dined at the Roc at the bottom of the Avenue, where there was music and company, and here they sometimes fell in with one or another of Cora's circle. Then about twice a week they would go on to a theater or a music hall, and have supper at another restaurant. The young man soon grew aware that if Cora's attention was not fully occupied, she became restless and irritable.

These evenings abroad gave Henry Harper a feeling of profound discomfort. But he did not complain. It would not have been fair to Cora, who, as she proudly said, gave him a free hand for the rest of the day. And even the publicity of restaurant life, against his deepest instinct as it was, had compensations quite apart from the performance of duty. There was much to be learned from these places.

The Sailor had a remarkable faculty of minute observation. The genie within never slept. Other worlds were swimming into his ken. Golden hours were being stolen from his labors, but he was gaining first-hand knowledge of men and things.

These early days of married life were in some respects the most valuable the Sailor had yet known. He was no longer living entirely in his dreams. So much was coming into his purview which he could not grasp, to which he had hardly a clue, that he had an overmastering desire for more exact information.

For example, the talk of Cora's numerous friends was almost a foreign language, which left him as a rule with a sense of hopeless ignorance and inferiority. But this merely increased the wish to catch up. Just as a surprisingly brief four years ago he had been tormented with an almost insane desire to read and write and to learn geography and arithmetic, so now he had a terrible craving to enter a world in which Cora moved with such ease and a.s.surance.

The chief difficulty now was the multiplicity of worlds around him.

There was his own private world which none could enter but himself.

That was a thing apart. It was made up of the awful memories of his youth: of Auntie, of the slushy streets of Blackhampton, of special editions, of the police, of a December night on the railway, of Mother, of Mr. Thompson, of the Old Man, of the half-deck of the _Margaret Carey_, of the Island of San Pedro, of the Chinaman, of Klond.y.k.e, of Ginger, of Auntie again, of Miss Foldal, of the final catastrophe; all these memories lay at he back of the world he inhabited--these memories and the wonderful books he was always studying. Yet enthroned above them all was the Aladdin's lamp that glowed like a star in the right-hand corner of his brain. But even that seemed to be related to other strange, ineluctable forces which lay deep down at the root of his being, in the center of which was the thing he called himself.

This private cosmos, however, wide as it was, was only an imperceptible speck of the whole. Yet it was all important, because he felt it was the only one he would ever really know. As for this world of Cora's, it was quite outside his experience. Even the simplest objects in it did not present themselves at the same angle of vision. They were man and wife and went about together, but the worlds they inhabited were so diverse that he soon felt it would never be possible to merge them in one another.

Then, too, there was the cosmogony of Mr. Rudge. That was a vastly different matter from his own and Cora's, and the great world of the Roc and the Domino where there was continual music and people drank things called liqueurs and wore evening clothes. Again, there was the world of his friend Mr. Ambrose, and beyond this again was the world of those wonderful people whom he used to watch with such solemn delight and curiosity when he paid his Sunday morning pilgrimages to Hyde Park.

XVII

Early in November "The Adventures of d.i.c.k Smith on the High Seas" was published by a firm with which Mr. Ambrose was connected. It was clear from the first that it was going to succeed. The progress of the story through the chaste pages of _Brown's_ had brought many new readers to that old and respected periodical. The editor made no secret of the fact that it was the best serial story the magazine had had for years, and as soon as "d.i.c.k Smith" appeared as a book it had many friends.

The notices in the papers, which Mr. Ambrose took the trouble to send to Henry Harper from time to time, were kind to the verge of indiscretion. Almost without exception they summed up the modest and unpretending story in the same way: it was a thing entirely new. The writer saw and felt life with extraordinary intensity, and he had the power of painting it with a vivid force that was astonis.h.i.+ng. The effect was heightened by a quaintness of style which seemed to give the impression of a foreigner of great perception using a tongue with which he was unfamiliar. Yet, allowing for every defect, there was a wonderful power of narrative, not unworthy of a Bunyan or a Defoe. A spell was cast upon the reader's mind, which made it very difficult for those who began the book to lay it down until the last page had been read.

Henry Harper was quite unconscious of the stir he had begun to make in literary circles. One aspect only of a literary success had anything to say to him at first, and that was purely monetary. Moreover, Edward Ambrose, unaffectedly proud of being the sponsor of "the new Stevenson"--a generalization so crude as to be very wide of the mark--was wise enough to stand between the personality of this half formed but rapidly developing man of genius and the curiosity of his admirers.

The young man was more than content that Edward Ambrose should take charge of his literary affairs and "dry nurse him" through these early and in some ways very critical months of his fame. And child of nature as the Sailor was, it was a task that could only have been carried through by a man of tact and liberality of mind.

One day, at the beginning of December, when Henry Harper had been married nearly six weeks--the visit to the Registrar round the corner in the Circus had coincided almost exactly with the book publication of the "Adventures of d.i.c.k Smith on the High Seas"--he received a letter from his friend. It said:

Bury Street, Tuesday.

MY DEAR HARPER,

If you are free, come and dine here on Friday next at eight. There will be two or three men (no ladies!), old friends, and your humble admirers, who would like very much to meet you. Do come if you can.

Yours ever, EDWARD AMBROSE.

The Sailor's first instinct, in spite of his confidence in Mr. Ambrose and a liking for him that now amounted to affection, was to decline this invitation. He was well aware that he was not fitted by education and by social opportunity to take his place as the equal of Mr. Ambrose and his friends. Therefore, a summons even in these siren terms, worried him a good deal. It seemed disloyal to deny such a friend for such a reason; but he had learned that the genie who now accompanied him day and night wherever he went, had one very sinister quality. It had a power of making him morbidly sensitive in regard to his own deficiencies.

In order to end the state of uncertainty into which the letter had thrown him, he showed it to Cora. She advised him to accept the invitation. This Mr. Ambrose, as she knew, had helped him very much, and it would be wise, she thought, for Harry to meet these friends of his, who no doubt would be literary men like Mr. Ambrose himself.